The Way of the Wombat

When I did the year of weekly pictures from the windows it was usually taken on Tuesday mornings.

Well here is the view on this Tuesday morning:)





It has just stopped snowing but I think that today is still a day for staying home.

I am off work today - using up some annual leave days before the end of March. And it has been a beautiful day. I had to pop into town, and took a couple of pictures simply to contrast with all the recent ones.

( Click for the pics... )

Totally unrelated, I have been doing a spot of tidying up over the past couple of weeks, and pointed out to D-d that, sitting upstairs, there was a ball of very thick, plush, wool and a pair of enormous needles, with a pattern, that had been a gift to her from my sister a couple of years ago.

The reply was "Yeah... but they're to knit another scarf! I don't need another scarf - I've got at least five already."

"Can I have them, then?" I asked.

"Please! Do what you want with them," she said.

I had no need for a scarf either - but there was just enough wool to make a very cuddly cushion cover...

( Look! )

I took this picture up near Mum's, in the north of the island, yesterday, about 4pm.

It was the first fairly still evening for about a week.



Today we have only 30mph winds, gusting to 50, and the sea has stayed on the right side of the sea walls. Joy of joys, for tomorrow The Isle of Man Met Office has issued a red warning with more flooding predicted around mid afternoon because of another high tide (2.56pm), a significant storm surge and severe gale force winds with gusts of up to 65 miles per hour.

What fun...

We are just coming to the end of a very major storm.

The wind picked up last night so that by about 10pm we had steady winds of over 45mph, with gusts up to 80+mph. And it stayed like that until mid afternoon today.

I had a phone call from my mother (who lives about 20 miles away at the northern tip of the island) about 9.30pm last night to say the roof had blown off her garden shed. This is the shed in which she keeps her mobility scooter.

Fortunately a neighbour had spotted it, rung her bell, and then gone to get a tarpaulin and a rope to cover the scooter and tie it down. But I really didn't sleep very well with the combination of the noise of the wind here and the worry about how she was coping.

I rang her as soon as it got light - the storm still raging - and she said the shed had almost completely disappeared, she had hardly slept, she felt all sick and 'churny' inside. I have to say the idea of driving up, with trees down all over the place, was a bit scary, and there was no point is asking S2C to come with me as he is still not allowed to lift anything - but then came word that my brother-in-law and his mate were on their way there, I didn't need to go. I have to admit to being relieved.

They found as much of the shed as they could, and tied it together and to something solid, to stop it blowing away and causing further damage. Then they rounded up as many of the contents as they could, like the lawn mower, and the charger for the scooter, sorted out the electric supply so there was no longer any danger - and volunteered to put a new shed up as soon as possible, before heading off to the local pub for lunch, as if, Mum said, it had been a welcome jaunt out for the two of them.

Fortunately the wind is now down to a more manageable 30mph, and we have survived unscathed. In fact, amazingly, we didn't even lose the wreath off the front door which I had forgotten to take in as the storm broke!

Also, of course, there have been no ships or flights in or out of the island all day - good job we had no intention of going anywhere - but difficult for those who had been home for Christmas and should have been heading back to other parts for work...

Traditionally the church children have a special service in July to celebrate the end of term as we do not have children's lessons over the summer, so many of them are off-island, and it gives the teachers a chance to charge our own batteries.

This service was on Sunday - and our theme was sheep! We looked at a number of the times sheep occur in the Bible a few weeks ago - and then we made sheep! Lots of sheep. And rehearsed a story, and made more sheep...

I took some pictures -

( Read more... )


In other news - it is definitely summer today - S2C has taken his jumper off. And even his sweatshirt for an hour or two!

Actually the temperature was about 25C today - and I met one of my patients who has a small son, about 18 months old. She said he was a bit fretful in the heat - but then it occurred to us that it has never been as warm as this at any time in his life - no wonder he was making strange!

I hope you have all had a good Easter Weekend.

Under the cut are a few pictures ranging, as my subject line says, from a rough sea to a chocolate trifle! Also a couple of pictures of my Easter Eggs...

( Click here for the pics... )

S2C made it to work last night - he slipped, slid, and staggered down the steep slope of our street to the main road, where there was no sign of any buses - but a taxi was trying, and failing, to go up the next street to ours.

When the driver gave up, and the passenger got out to walk the rest of the way, S2C flagged the taxi and was, therefore, able to get down to town to work.

There were no buses this morning either - however, a colleague who got in by car for 8am finally gave him a lift up to the village about 9am when it was clear that he was stuck down in Douglas. (The bus problem is caused by us all living on steep slopes - the bus routes, naturally, are through the housing estates which soon become impassable!)

So - he got there, and home, and by tonight, we hope, he will be able to take our car down.

The west of the island is cut off from the rest of us, though, as they have had the worst snow - and with the high winds the drifting has been a big problem.

This is the webcam picture of the seafront at Peel - so at sea level, and with the heavy salt spray effect...



Pretty - but chilly. Parts of the west of the island are without electricity - high winds coupled with snow and ice on the powerlines - and may be until Monday. I really don't envy them.

Today is the vernal equinox - and I am posting this picture to show that, despite the temperature not getting above 6 or 7C for the past two or three months, spring is trying to spring around here.



Or maybe I'm just trying to make those of you who are behind us jealous, of course... :)

Those daffodils are just growing on the verge across the road from the village shop in Colby. I took the picture from the shop steps.

The great snowstorms sweeping across the British Isles have swept across the bottom half of the small island - blown by steady 35mph winds. It began to snow at 9am. It snowed almost constantly until 5pm - and not a single flake has stuck below about 1,000ft. I am really quite disappointed as I am a bit of a big kid when it snows - at least for the first couple of days.

I do, still, send warm wishes, mugs of virtual hot chocolate, woolly blankets and so on to those of you who are knee-deep in snow and feeling the need to cuddle up by the fire. I hope you are all enjoying the weather rather than finding it makes life too difficult.

And now for something completely different.

Across the Atlantic, The New York Daily News went out to find Mr Perfect after revealing the results of a survey by an online dating site into what women look for in a man. They reckon that they've found him - and guess what? He's a Manxman. Actually his father taught me French at school and I can vaguely remember him as a small child...

I am keeping my pictures mainly to post in the Where I Live Community at the weekend, but just want to share what the sky outside my house looks like right now, as it is very beautiful.

( There are two pictures under here )

One looking more or less west, the other more or less east - although my sense of direction is not good. The black specks on the first one are birds, not a dirty camera lens!