Awful weather - typical Brits talk

YoungBlueEyes

Ah at least you’ve some left Farway, all is not lost  
Cow parsley stems - are they the hollow ones that earwigs live in…? I think I remember them, and it’s made my stomach shrink just imagining somebody putting one to their mouth  

Coffee break from the bindweed battle. It really is a war out there eh! 

Dustyevsky

YoungBlueEyes said:

Cow parsley stems - are they the hollow ones that earwigs live in…? I think I remember them,

I can do you Cow Parsley. We went for a walk last night and there was a lot bordering the lake*:

While we were out, one of our field gateposts caught fire! I know it was old, rotten, and hollow, but being asked to believe it was set alight by the evening sun bouncing off a tractor wing mirror 50m away was too much. :/I know I'm into non-mainstream ideas, but that makes me more, not less, critical! My theory is someone who is supposed to have given-up smoking popped a cigarette butt into the hollow top as a method of concealment. The post is in shade from about 6pm! Anyway, thanks to my  extensive network of taps, the fire was put out  quickly, but not fast enough to save the post.

* The soft focus is what my unobtrusive little camera does in low light; it is not meant to signify any romantic connection between the pair pictured, who were unaware I was taking photos! There's wee a dog too, if you expand it.

YoungBlueEyes

Isn't that a lovely mellow pic, I could sit there for hours Ooh I like the lady on the left's hair.
Maybe Armpit Dog could be a new Thing. Beats Handbag Dog anyway. 

Aww RIP post! You must have had some hellish dry hot weather down there for that to happen from a tab end.....

Cool here still, 9' they say.  I'm sat here wearing a jumper jeans and socks! My cousin is jealous, they're pure melting over there. My aunt is getting bored of it now cos she can't go out in all that heat. It'll arrive here tomorrow. They say. 

Work has ground to a halt here 'til more materials arrive (more materials!) I appreciate it's cheaper doing it yourself, but we're still going to eating dust on toast from now to christmas

I bought a book yesterday about weather - An Unworldly Weather Man, The Highs and Lows of Bill Foggitt. Looks v interesting. It's about an auld fellah who lived up the road from James Herriot, but was weather-y not vet-y. Astonishingly accurate the majority of the time apparently. Experts consulted him. Film crews from Japan Germany USA filmed him. He did it all from folk-lore and stuff wot his parents and grandparents believed.
From the blurb - "Bill Foggitt may not have achieved the international repute of James Herriot, who lived only a few miles from him, but this weather sage of North Yorkshire, whose quirky methods of forecasting relied on the mysterious behaviour of plants, insects, animals and birds, has fascinated millions, as well as baffling experts with their multi-million pound technology".

Might be the best 65p I've spent

Dustyevsky

Bill would have been right out of favour today. He didn't go with the flow:

He remained sceptical about global warming, tending towards the theory of the imminent return of the Ice Age. "I get asked about the greenhouse effect a lot," he said. "People say 'will the sea rise?' I tell them it would take a hell of a lot for it to get to Thirsk. What worries me is that my records show that in the middle of the 18th century it was so cold, beer froze in the glass. The thought of that chills me more than anything."

I'm with Bill, in that the UK produces less than 1% of global emissions, so regardless of the debatable science, what we do is pretty inconsequential, compared with other nations and overall climate trends. No one's guilt-tripping me!  

Here's another 'summer evening' photo I shot last night. Sadly, I spent a minute too long on the lakeside couple and missed the last ball of the match!

I love the thatched clubhouse!

YoungBlueEyes

Gawd that is beautiful eh! Nice detail on the end of it too.

Yeah Bill is on my wavelength I think. I'm not saying the climate isn't changing, but I don't believe it's all man-made. Or even majoritively man-made actually. It's cyclical and we only have a small effect on it. Doing something about farting cows or milk cartons going in the wrong bin are not going to save the world. 

As I read it I'll put up the good/interesting/funny lines I'm actually sorry I'm busy today or I'd sit and get it read in one sitting for its only 126 pages.

Dustyevsky

YoungBlueEyes said:

Yeah Bill is on my wavelength I think. I'm not saying the climate isn't changing, but I don't believe it's all man-made. Or even majoritively man-made actually. It's cyclical and we only have a small effect on it. Doing something about farting cows or milk cartons going in the wrong bin are not going to save the world.

I think you're bang-on there. Since 2020 I've learned not to take too much notice of the things I'm told by supposedly eminent people. If they could get it so wrong in one context...Look to see who's funding them is the best advice I've read.

Meanwhile, back in the everyday world, it's another scorchio with wind. I'm supposedly trudging rocky paths later. We'll see!

Farway

Sunny, of course, so got on and fed & watered the pots at the front before the heat gets going today

Nicely evocative pics Dusty

AR, sorry about the pollen, must be awful as a gardener to suffer, I read a "Pollen Bomb" is due with this weather, I suppose it is better than an Ice Storm or whatever comes next in the weather warnings catalogue.

Talking of which, heard on R4 so must be true, El Niño on the way, fire & pestilence due next year, but they were struggling to get the right amount of doom across when for UK it means a hot dry summer after a cold winter, so sort of normal then

I remember Bill Foggit, his forecasts used to pop up regularly, around the same time as Old Moore's Almanac

My T & M offer seeds arrived yesterday, the sow by dates are next year, hence the reduction in price and clearing out older stock, which is fine by me.

The flat yellow climbing French are sow by this year, should be fine for next but just in case I have sown some in a pot which I expect, slugs allowing, will give a crop this year, and more importantly, fresh seeds

There is also a large pack of Persian Jewel love in a mist, I may sow a few later, just for a spot of late colour

YoungBlueEyes

I'll be sitting in and getting Bill read today, forecast is too hot and v high UV here. They say. I'll be whining about it tomorrow no doubt - I wasn't built for the heat  

I heard that R4 piece Farway, "struggling to get the right amount of doom across" is a good way of putting it. I'm going off R4...
Persian Jewels are one of the ones I sowed in the choc trays that haven't come up, I've still only got brassicas in my paint pot lid. I thought I'd see something of them by now. I know it hasn't been warm but the connie does seem to gather the heat in from somewhere... bit upset about that actually, I'll have to buy more cos I do love them.
You're gonna be knee-deep in beans - what do you do with them all? How do you store them..?
 
Arb do you take tablets or what for your hayfever? I used to suffer something terrible but when I switched from tablets to eyedrops and nose spray they really helped. That and smear a bit of vaseline round your nostrils to catch the pollen on it's way in. I don't think that helped as much as the drops and spray but it did a bit  

Went to a garden centre with my friend yesterday aft, and came back with a few more plants (not that I've planted the last lot yet but that's not the point). I didn't realise you can get sunflowers as a shrub so I lifted one. Sat it out overnight having a drink, and the bladdy squirrels were at it first thing this morning Mind you, there's one fewer of them cos lovely neighbour found a gutted body on her grass yesterday morning :applause:  

We're out of the anti-cyclonic gloom here at last, the dawn was bright and sunny! Still a lot of white clouds up there but there's enough sun for shadows and that's definitely an improvement.

Dustyevsky

We had rain overnight here, but not so much as you'd notice. Apparently, we're in gloom until tea time today, with the potential for a downpour late morning, but we'll see how that works out. With all the hay bales now whisked-away to storage, it matters not.

Did I say it was a much better crop than I expected? I'm not sure of much this morning, except everything below waist level hurts!

Yes, walking partner and I decided we'd test ourselves yesterday, so took on a coastal 5 miler, which I didn't research too well. We went wrong at the start, but there was very poor signage, so when we tried correcting the error,  we chose wrongly. It looked like a footpath, but after making fair progress for a while, it suddenly changed into a ravine full of rocks, dead wood... and then water too. We'd been walking a dry stream bed. We managed to climb out, but on the wrong side, so missed the footpath yet again..... I won't bore you with the rest, especially the bit where we discovered we were back at the start.

My partner walker isn't easily put off, though, so despite 24c, legs scratched to hell, and no wind (by the sea?) we set off again. Now on the 'proper' coast path, it turned out to be a harsh section with too many steps to count. By 5pm it was obvious we weren't going to make the route planned, but we were heartened by two other 'older' walkers who'd been let down by the local bus and had about 9 miles to go to reach their car. “We should do it easily by supper time,” one said, cheerily. Their knees obviously weren't feeling like mine! They had walking poles, though. I never imagined I'd one day have walking stick envy, but there it was!

Long story short, we found a green lane and returning via that was easy, apart from all those steps which it dumped us above. On the bright side, parking was free, and had we wanted to paddle, there were only 13 people on the beach; a  miracle for a hot day in June, but natural selection of a longish walk and a very steep descent/climb out reduces popularity.

I spotted  a few interesting wild flowers en-route, but the only plant picture I took was of a bracket fungus. I couldn't see what it was growing on,but it seemed incongruous, sitting there at ground level, and at this time of year.  

YoungBlueEyes

Seems like being back at the start was a good thing Dusty, with all those wrong turns what if you'd ended up miles away  

Beautiful colours and shape to the fungus. Has something had a nibble on it?