Moss

Outside in the cold, I saw this moss on branches. The weather has been so wet this winter that I feel like I will see a fully formed Ark on the top of the local hill!

I love the acid green of the moss. And the reddish purples of the leaves on the ground. I wish the depth of field was less so the background was more blurred, but my mobile phone automatically seems to give the same values for foreground and background. There is probably a way of changing settings? I don’t know how?

Raindrops

It was raining this morning at three in the morning, but through the mild mirk of a December night the sound of a blackbird was heard singing.

The rain continued and the raindrops splattered my window, the drips from the gutter splashed down onto me as I opened the front door to get the milk bottles in. Water was running down the road and overflowing the drains.

I didn’t hear the bird but I could hear the cars whooshing through the rain… Being on a main road can be noisy.

Missing fine weather

A few months after our driest summer in years we are constantly getting wet weather gales and storms. The rain gets through holes and doen chimneys and overflowing guttering.

I want brilliant white clouds floating in azure blue skies. Sunlight on my head and shoulders. Soft breezes, not howling gales. Scents and smells that lift the spirits, not mould and fungus.

So, the spring will come again. I hope to enjoy the rest of winter and then greet spring with open arms.

In from the rain

My Cat is like an otter. He loves the rain. He came in from the storm Bram earlier today and I took this photo. He loves standing and staring at me. Generally this means “feed me”, so I did.

I know he has at least two other “homes”, although he has been back here more recently. He comes up amd sleeps on the bed but gets off if I have a disturbed night. (which is most of them these days). He’s just snuck upsts now. Sleep well pusscat.

Rain

It rained very heavily a few days ago.

I wrote this poem in response :

Rain flowed down the hill
Flooded the gutters
A wall of water
In the midst of it
A man on a mobility scooter
Drove it through two feet of water
Flash flood wheel chair hero!

The man on the scooter was videoed, it made the local TV news! Legend! I think it’s on tiktok in Stoke on Trent.

Autumn dawn

Reddish sky in the morning

Shepherds take warning….

And they should! A few days ago we had a red dawn, this photo was taken as it faded.

The sky soon clouded over and later we had a deluge! Water flowed down the hill so fast and deep that it overwhelmed the drains and poured out of gutters onto the pavements. At the back of my house it came down the window in a sheet of rain and the water snuck into the wall and plaster around the window frame. I’ve never seen anything like it.

There was a flash flood in the centre of town with rain water up to people’s car headlights. Shops that were safe at the front had brown water knee high in their store rooms….

It might have been a microburst but it was very stormy. The winds were blowing trees about. It was more than the usual thunderstorm. Thankfully it blew over after about twenty minutes.

Climate change is here. I don’t know how places like Jamaica and Cuba and Haiti coped with last week’s hurricane. I feel so worried for them.

Where did this come from?

WhatsApp photo of a rainbow a friend sent me. For some reason it appeared in my gallery. I get all sorts of photos from friends and I wouldn’t normally share them, but this is Yorkshire terraced house rooves with a rainbow above them. I like the sunset. You can just see an arc of colour in the sky.

The rainbow is above the houses, and the fronts of them are catching the sunlight. It shows how the sun must always be on the opposite side of the sky to a rainbow. The prisms of the rain drops scattering the light.

When I was younger I saw a rainbow coming down to the ground in front of me. It was about 50 yards away. As I walked towards it, it moved away at walking pace. Then I started to jog and it moved away at the same pace as I was travelling.

It was fascinating, and it stayed in my memory, so everytime I see these beautiful  light shows I appreciate it.