A quick post on a rainy day

Yes, seriously: a rainy day.

We don’t get many of them in Cape Town at this time of the year.

Anyway, two things to cover today. The main one being the widespread outrage* at the lack of a beagle update in yesterday’s post. I won’t be making that mistake again.

The beagle is doing fine, thank you very much. A first check-up with the vet this morning was passed with flying colours and we are now moving on towards bandage removal next week. Stitches and staples will come out the week after that, and then there’s this crazy plan to get her into a swimming pool for some hydrotherapy.

Good luck with that.

The other thing is to do a control image for yesterday’s Heathrow picture. Because how do you know that it isn’t always that quiet (although, you do).

So here’s that one for you. Some catch-up going on.

On that note, we’ve got a quiet day overhead today, with all the local planes taking off to the North, and not bothering this side of the peninsular at all.

Like how I tied that all together at the end?
Mmm. Me too.

* I got a whole email

Sun stats

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.

Like a kipper

What a morning. The sun was out. The solar was PUMPING. Really breezy, but it felt… Summery.

But this afternoon, I’ve been done up like a kipper.

It’s riding Friday (not me), and after the incredibly warm, sunny – but really windy weather over our side of the mountain – I asked the riding instructor what the weather was like over on the her side.

It’s lovely out. Slight warm breeze.

Shorts will be comfortable, I reckon.

And so I went with it.

Yeah. But Cape Town doesn’t play.

Four seasons in one day is nothing. Because I genuinely believe that the instructor was telling the truth – we’ve all been so desperate for some sunshine – but in the 20 minutes that it took to get over here…

THINGS HAVE CHANGED.

The wind has picked up, the cloud has rolled in, the sun has gone.

I’m sheltering behind the henhouse (not a euphemism), but it’s still rather chilly. Especially around the leg areas. I mean, I’ll definitely survive, but – for the record – shorts were not comfortable.

I’ve been done up like a kipper.

Winter: “I’m not in this week”

News from Chez Seasons today is that Winter is knackered after all its hard work last Friday, when it chucked 30mm of wet nastiness our way.

Apparently, a leave form was submitted and approved late on Friday evening, and thus, Winter will not be in this week.

Look, while every employee is entitled to annual leave under the
Basic Conditions of Employment Act [No. 75 of 1997], it’s really awkward that Winter has chosen the busiest time to not come in for the next seven days.

And quite why its line manager (presumably God or some other pencil-necked desk jockey?) chose to ok it is a little beyond me.

Still. Not my business to be telling other deities what to do. Not my circus, not my monkeys, not my problem.

Might as well enjoy the sunshine.