Weather Ever Changing

In which things get sweaty

Written by Forest Pines; published at 10:27 pm on July 2nd, 2009.
Filed under: Dear Diary.

I had hoped that a thunderstorm would clear the air, get rid of some of the humidity, cool things down a bit. Unfortunately, nothing changed. We had the thunderstorm, and half an hour later the ground was dry and the weather was still hot, muggy, and sticky to the touch. Oh well. Summer isn’t nice when it’s too hot to think.

Things I was going to blog about recently but haven’t: the rather silly “let’s bring the World Cup to Bristol” proposals, which seem like nothing more than a plan to blackmail the council planning department into letting Tesco build a new Ashton store, two minutes down the street from the Sainsbury’s that’s already there. Plus, the Easton Arts Trail, a rather enjoyable wander round which, already, was nearly a fortnight ago. Not to mention pictures of old trains from the weekend before that, and all the other things we’ve been getting up to lately apart from the strange foreign dirty movies. If it’s too hot to leave the sofa, it’s definitely too hot to blog

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Keyword noise: art, Ashton, Ashton Gate, Bristol, Bristol City, Easton, Easton Arts Trail, heat, hot, July, planning, summer, temperature, Tesco, weather

Glad To Be British

In which FP does not like the weather

Written by Forest Pines; published at 5:01 pm on May 31st, 2009.
Filed under: Dear Diary.

No, really. I never thought I’d say that, and the regular readers all probably thought they’d never hear it too. But, yes, the past couple of days have made me glad to be British?

Why? Because I can’t bear the weather at the moment. I stepped outside my doorstep today, and felt myself starting to wilt at the corners. Ten seconds of bright sun and warmth was enough to make me want to scurry away into the shade. One weekend of summer heat is enough to make me glad I live in a country where the weather, normally, consists of drips, wind and fog.

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Keyword noise: heat, hot, summer, sun, sunny, warm, weather

The changing of the seasons

In which we pass a milestone

Written by Forest Pines; published at 1:38 pm on March 17th, 2009.
Filed under: Dear Diary.

It’s nearly six months, now, since we moved house, and we seem to have made it through the winter. By next week the days will be longer than the nights; and this morning, when we left the house, the sky was blue and the sun shone down on us. Astronomically we might be at the start of spring; outside, it feels as if spring is already verging on summer.

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Keyword noise: anniversary, climate, equinox, milestone, seasons, spring, summer, weather

Photo post of the week

In which we visit Cornwall

Written by Forest Pines; published at 9:05 am on December 5th, 2008.
Filed under: Photobloggery.

This week, still from my summer holiday uploads: castles and derelict mineshafts.

The engine house in the bottom row is the well-known Towanroath engine house near St Agnes. The name probably isn’t that well-known, but as it’s perched halfway up a cliffside over the Atlantic, it’s a stock location for Cornish landscape shoots; so much so that it was on the cover of one of the guide books we took with us.* I remember it appearing in the 1980s children’s horror film Haunters Of The Deep, which starts with two of the characters looking down the grated-over mineshaft next to the engine house and listening to the sound of the sea coming up it.

* the Rough Guide to Devon and Cornwall, 2007 edition.

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Keyword noise: castles, Chapel Porth, Cornwall, engine house, Haunters Of The Deep, holiday, mine, mineshaft, photography, photos, Restormel, Restormel Castle, St Agnes, summer, Towanroath

Photo post of the week

In which it’s still summer

Written by Forest Pines; published at 4:06 pm on November 21st, 2008.
Filed under: Photobloggery.

As it’s Friday again, some more summer photos

Keyword noise: photo, photography, cornwall, lizard, summer

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Keyword noise: boats, Cornwall, dish, dog, fog horn, Goonhilly, holiday, lifeboat, lighthouse, Lizard, photography, photos, Polpeor, Polpeor Cove, satellite, satellite dish, sleepy, St Ives, summer, tourists

Photo post of the week

In which we photograph the deep blue sea

Written by Forest Pines; published at 9:32 am on November 14th, 2008.
Filed under: Photobloggery.

I grew up not far from the sea. I didn’t go down to the beach or the seafront very often, but I was close enough that you could see out to sea from the top deck of my school bus. I’ve always felt good by the sea.*

On the other hand, I grew up in an area where the sea is the colour of weak milky tea. So it’s always nice to go somewhere and find that the sea can, actually, sometimes be storybook blue.**

In other sea-related (or, at least, tidal) news: the mystery words on the shore of the Avon, which we spotted last weekend and posted about, have been identified: an artwork to highlight litter in the sea, by an artist called Pete Dolby. Thanks to Liz for writing and letting me know.

* You could argue some sort of genetic memory, because my mum’s family’s descended from a bunch of 19th-century Cornish fishermen (and smugglers, no doubt), from Looe and Polperro. On the other hand, my dad’s family’s from Derby, which is as unsealike as you can get.

** Pure water is, as a matter of fact, very very slightly a pale blue colour. You can see it, just about, if you run a bathful of water in a white bath. That’s not the main reason the sea can look blue, though. And different cultures have seen it different ways; the Homeric adjective for it is “wine-dark”, and you know how dark Greek wine can be. I’ve heard that the ancient Greeks didn’t quite distinguish between blue and green in the same way as we do; but I don’t know enough Greek to tell you how true that is.

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Keyword noise: art, blue sea, boats, Carrick Roads, Cornwall, Falmouth, family, feedback, fishermen, genealogy, Gyllyngvase, harbour, holiday, Pete Dolby, photography, photos, Porthminster, public art, sea, smugglers, St Ives, summer, water

Photo post of the week

In which we go to Cornwall

Written by Forest Pines; published at 11:24 am on November 8th, 2008.
Filed under: Artistic, Dear Diary, Photobloggery.

Not only have I been behind on updating this site, I’ve been getting behind on posting photos online. I generally stick to posting 6 to 8 photos per day, partly because uploading them is such a slow and tedious job that I can’t be bothered doing any more. This, however, means that I’m still only at the start of posting photos of our summer camping trip, down to Cornwall. That was: August. It’s now: November. That’s some delay. Here, though, are some examples, of hot, sunny, summer Cornish weather.

One comment. »

Keyword noise: Carrick Roads, cathedral, Cornwall, derelict hotel, Falmouth, harbour, holiday, photography, photos, pier, summer, Truro

For when you have something to say

In which FP gets hot and sticky

Written by Forest Pines; published at 9:06 pm on July 31st, 2008.
Filed under: Meta.

Was I saying how nice summer is? I’m regretting it. It’s hot, sticky, damp and humid, with a constant light drizzle which isn’t at all refreshing. Every so often there’s a flash of summer lightning in the sky, so far away the thunder can’t even be heard. The world is quiet, and I have the desire to do something creative but not the energy to do it. I can picture any number of opening scenes in my head, but lack the power to describe. Time for the third cold shower of the day. I can picture a closing scene, but don’t know how to reach it.

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Keyword noise: hot, humid, summer, thunder, weather

Quietude

In which we relax

Written by Forest Pines; published at 11:48 am on July 29th, 2008.
Filed under: Dear Diary, Meta.

Yes, things have been a little quiet recently. This is because things are happening. Not necessarily good things, not necessarily bad things, not necessarily either. For that matter, not everything is by any means one or the other.

Besides: the other evening, when the day had cooled off a little, we sat on a park bench on Brandon Hill and watched. Hot air balloons drifting across in front of us, kites either side of us, and smoke wafting up from barbecues dotted around the park. Why would I want to spend my evenings sitting at a writing-desk when we could laze in the summer sunshine instead? It’s time to stop worrying so much about the day-to-day, to relax against whatever we’re faced with, and turn the other cheek to anything bad that might happen.

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Keyword noise: Brandon Hill, Bristol, hiatus, relaxation, summer, view, vista

Tourism memories

In which we wonder whether to keep posting photos here

Written by Forest Pines; published at 9:29 pm on October 9th, 2007.
Filed under: Photobloggery.

One thing about using my Flickr account more: it’s meant, I’ve been going through all the photos I’ve taken in the past year, going: “ooh, actually, that’s not bad.” And: “Oh, yes, I hardly mentioned that trip on the blog.”

I wonder if, with Flickr, posted photos are going to disappear a bit, into a void packed with millions of similar photos from other people. If I post them here, though, then even though far fewer people will probably see them, they’ll be easier for me to find myself. Maybe that just means I haven’t learned how to use Flickr properly yet. In the meantime: the Cornish tourist-trap village of Mevagissey, back in May.

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Keyword noise: Cornwall, Flickr, holiday, Mevagissey, photography, photos, summer