Tag: sunshine

Sun stats

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Another lovely day here today and the forecast looks set for more lovely sunny days in the week ahead:

Those temperatures aren’t anything to email home about, but it’s nice enough and, as Mrs 6000 pointed out, it’s hardly summer, is it? Which it absolutely isn’t, no. That would only start on the 1st or the 21st of December, depending upon which system you’re using.

But we shouldn’t be complaining, especially when looking back over at the UK. This image has been doing the rounds over the last 24 hours, indicating the number of hours of sunshine around the UK, the Isle of Man and Ireland over the first 7 (seven) days of November.

Ouch. Eina. My fok. Goodness gracious.

Bearing in mind that London is sitting on an average of about 9 hours 20 minutes of daylight each day, they could have had over 65 hours of sunshine. They got 2.
The Isle of Man – averaging just over 9 hours of daylight last week – got not a single hour.

In seven whole days!

Aberdeen was the big (and rather unlikely) winner. 8¾ hours of daylight each day, and a whole 13 hours of sunshine in seven days. That’s 21% of their daylight as sunshine. Incredible. Their local Burns Unit must be bursting at the seams, just like it is in late January each year.

We made hay (not literally) while the sun shone today, with the Boy Wonder driving himself and his friends down to Agulhas for a long weekend, and LM 6000, having recovered from her singing last night, riding a horse over some big sticks, rather amazingly.

But now it’s time to sit back with a glass of local red, and catch up with the Youtube videos I haven’t had time to watch this week. I’ll be incredibly knowledgeable and a brilliant photographer in about an hour.

Just watch. Literally.

Boing!

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It does finally feel like Spring is beginning to… well… spring. The sun is out, the flowers are budding, the birds are singing. And – if ever there was a sign that the better weather is on its way – I have chosen today to varnish all the garden furniture, ready for the outdoor season ahead.

Well, all the wooden stuff, anyway.

This is the garden furniture equivalent of turning your central heating off in the UK or ordering braai wood instead of firewood down here in Cape Town.

It should be a day for optimism, happiness and positivity. Sadly though, it’s all up against a soundtrack provided by Edwin Knobhead and his Power Drill Orchestra, because the inept builder next door is now running over a month and a half over his already rather lax schedule.
We’re heading towards 6 months now. What joy.

I’m not saying that it’s loud out there, but even my fancy ANC headphones – that’s Active Noise Cancelling, not the dodgy political party – were being overwhelmed. And they are literally meant to actively cancel out noise.

Which is what there is outside.

And so, job done, and tables and chairs actually looking pretty good, I have legged it back inside. Not that the walls of our house are enough to find peace, but it’s more bearable when you try to overcome it with some loud Nemone on 6 Music while banging out a blog post.

In fact, buoyed by the stuff I have achieved in the garden over the past 24 hours, despite facing such aural adversity, I might even bang out tomorrow’s post while I’m at it.

You can read that tomorrow.

Day 376 – Ridehorsing

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It’s the last day of the kids’ school holiday, and I’ve been drafted in to take one of them to the stables in Hout Bay.

Mrs 6000 usually likes to come out here, because she’s a much bigger fan of horses than I am, but she’s busy at work this morning, so I’m watching on instead.

And I have to say that there are probably worse places to spend an hour or so…

…especially after yesterday’s meteorological aberration.

Half a World Away

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Not the REM song, but an interesting thought as the UK and the Isle of Man face flooding, while my biggest problem is burning my feet on the way to the fridge to get another beer:
image

As you can see, it’s another gorgeous day down in Agulhas, and its sad to think that we’re heading home tomorrow – just in time for Sunday’s welcome(?) rain in Cape Town.