My Motley Meanderings

( Here, have a sunset... )

This was the sunset as seen from the back window of our house here in Burnley a couple of weeks ago. The picture hasn't been photoshopped other than to crop and scale it down for the web. It looked even more spectacular in real life. Pendle Hill is just to the right of the picture.

PS. It's interesting that my spellchecker accepts 'photoshopped' but not 'Pendle.'

Through the window I can see trees bending over sideways and birds flying backwards. I need to do some maintenance on Fenchurch this morning and there's no room to put her in the garage...

It's snowing here in Nelson, and sticking to the ground too.

ETA: That lasted less than an hour. Blue skies and sunshine now.
ETA2: Snowing again at noon but not sticking any more.

There was frost on the garage roof this morning. I really ought to sort out a heater for Fenchurch soon because the only way to stop the windscreen misting up when it's cold outside is to drive with the window open. An interesting thing I noticed this morning is that the temperature gauge stays quite low until the thermostat opens, at which point it rapidly climbs to normal running temperature. It's as if the sensor was on the radiator side of the thermostat, except I know it isn't - I suspect poor water flow around the sensor is to blame rather than any real problem with the cooling system.

I just saw a woman in a shop wearing a T-shirt with the slogan "Your the reason I believe in love." Nice thought, if only it made sense.

It's below zero outside, and it was 7.7C in the office when I arrived. I've put my thick winter coat on for the first time this year.

Dad decided last night that today would be the day to fit three new fence panels and refit a fourth that had come loose but not completely disintegrated. "Only if it's not windy," he said. Today dawned and it was still windy, but, "it's not so bad down in the garden." Right.

For two people (one of whom has an arthritic ankle) to lift a heavy five foot square sheet of wood up higher than their heads and slot it into the grooves in a pair of cast concrete posts is tricky at the best of times. When you're squeezed between the fence and an overgrown bush, the wind is blowing hard against the panel, and the posts have moved closer together so it won't fit in the groove and one person has to let go with one hand to thump the post without the aid of a mallet? Hmm...

There's one more panel to replace and another that's on its last legs, but I suspect he'll have trouble buying any right now.

I heard this afternoon while at work that the main road between Burnley (where I live) and Nelson (where I work) was closed because the roof of a factory had blown off in the gales and landed in the middle of the road. Since the bus I catch uses that road, I was expecting the journey home to be interesting. After waiting for most of an hour, a different bus to the one I usually catch turned up, and I decided to get on that rather than take the chance that "my" bus might be not far behind. It bypassed the closed road via a slow and circuitous back route, and terminated at Burnley station. There was no sign of another bus going up Manchester road any time soon, so I ended up calling my dad to beg a lift.

On the plus side, the roof is still on both the house and the office, and the garage hasn't blown away. When I was little I remember watching my dad lash down our old wooden garage in weather not unlike this - it had broken loose of its foundations and with each gust it lifted up into the air and he had to grab on and hold it down.