A different kind of icing

Now we all know that Rose has iced a thousand cakes, and is ocassionally capable of giving an icy stare at her hubby, but here she is doing what she must do if she wants to drive to work instead of walk! No snow yet this winter in Worthing, but plenty of frosty mornings.

Lovely weather we are having ...

Photo credit: Accuweather

http://photo.accuweather.com/photogallery/content/varioussizes.aspx?pid=23314&partner=accuweather

Accuweather is something Rose and I use daily (hey maybe the Brit preoccupation with the weather is already rubbing off on us). Apart from simply looking at the website, we also consume Accuweather data on our mobile phones, wifi connected PDA and even as an RSS stream somewhere. We mostly look for local Worthing weather of course, but we also keep track of the weather the rest of our family is enjoying or enduring, in the USA, Australia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, etc.

Anyway, this picture caught my imagination today - not sure I would like to be caught in one of those, but I think I would definitely like to see one ... from a distance!

Wettest Summer Ever

Heard this morning that this summer in Britain is now officially the wettest on record, breaking the previous record from 1789. Well, a whopping 13mm more than way back then. Weather data has been kept here on Mud Island for 240 years, and our first summer had to be the wettest of them all! Not that it has bugged us or made us miserable. An early autumn might do that though! No doubt it will be conclusively so, as there is still life in those clouds! I cut the grass yesterday - takes a whopping 20 minutes to mow our expansive English Estate - and was astonished at how fast the grass had grown in the week we were away. Oh dear, resistance is futile - are we being assimilated into the quintessential British habit - finding the weather of central importance! The Union Flag umbrella graphic comes from: http://www.triple-c.com/Images/thumb_uj_umb101.jpg

Mud Island is Awash

Still Loving the Rain

Photo credit: eWallpaper

It has rained most of the night, and still pouring this morning - but Rose and I were discussing how much we actually still like rainy days. UK people are weather-obsessed, and for the most part get gloomy and unhappy when it rains like it is this week. I guess that growing up in Africa, where the rain often comes as a relief - from heat, for farmers, etc. So we have not yet reached the place where we get all upset with the wet weather. Not yet anyway.

It's cool to be in KwaZulu Natal this week

Snow in South Africa - Yesterday

This pretty, wintery scene is yesterday, in the sub-tropical Drakensburg, in South Africa. Snow fell in many places in South Africa yesterday, it seems, including Gauteng, which last saw snow in 1981. For the past five years, when we lived in Johannesburg, I anticipated snow in Joeys, but it did not come. We leave, it comes! It was our daughter Michelle's first chance to get up close and personal with the white stuff, as for grandsons Rhys and Matthew who just thought is was too cold!

Front page of The Star newspaper in Joburg, today

Anniversary at Beachy Head

The picture here depicts part of the battle of Britain being fought high above the white chalk cliffs that mark the coastline here. We had a fabulous lunch at the Beachy Head Pub, high on top of the cliffs. Rose and I celebrated 29 years of being married today.

She deserves a medal! I remember 24 June 1978 like it was yesterday, and recalling some of the many events, changes, challenges, and joys that these years have brought is just amazing. After church today, we drove towards Eastbourne, and had decided to just stop somewhere that caught our eye, and so when we had looped through Eastbourne and heading back on the coastal road, we came across a sign to Beachy Head.

Unfortunately it was raining too hard for us to take a walk around, but seeing that there are a number of walking routes, I think we shall be back before the end of summer. For more interesting information about Beachy Head, have a look at this website. Nearby, are the Seven Sisters cliffs, and another walking trail, that we would like to try sometime. This photo came from Bradford Genealogy (thanks).

Spring is happening - hooray!

Rose, Cherry Tree blossoms, in Worthing yesterday

We took a longish walk into town for some shopping, and spent a little bit of time being blown around by wind on Worthing pier. Seagulls somehow manage to fight against the gusts of wind in one direction and then having a roller-coaster ride when they turned and let the wind just take them. It is lovely to see the spring flowers up in so many gardens, and Worthing Borough Council does a great job of flowers along the roads and in the town centre.

Seagulls on the beach Railing on the pier Beach buildings

Frozen Dew

Our car was completely covered in a thin layer of ice yesterday. Temperatures have dropped this week, and our thoughts of a very first cold and northern hemisphere Christmas got more real. The temptation is to simply throw a jug of hot water on the windscreen ... but sadly that is not good for windscreens! So we learn from watching others in the street with their ice scrapers. Tonight, my weather feed is telling me that we have zero degrees and freezing rain outside, so I am glad for our central heating. It's been a fun day, getting many small jobs done and the house ready for the family arrival on Sunday.

Windy Worthing is for real!

Thursday this week was the day that a tornado hit a part of London, and ripped into a street of houses, causing much damage. Around the same time, we were walking on the Worthing seafront, near the Sea Lane Cafe, when a gust of wind literally knocked Rose and our neice Emma, off their feet. My brother Rogan snapped this picture of them in hysterics when they realised what had just happened.

Out and about in Connecticut

Three days of wedding preparations. The inevitable mall crawl for the ladies to look for wedding outfits, which they all pretty much found in the end. We are having wonderful days of family reunion, meeting new family in Carol's parents (delightful people), and enjoying beautiful Connecticut - which I have finally learned how to spell correctly! The days are balmy, humid, and a nice change from the colder and dryer Johannesburg highveld winter we left behind! Three days to the wedding and all systems are go!

More info on where we are.

Hail storm 'like snow'

A hail storm on a hot summer's day, 2nd January 2005, in Johannesburg (well, Roodepoort really).

Almost a White Christmas

Sunday 2 January 2005 - you would expect a hot summer day in Johannesburg, and it was, around 27 degrees Celsius by noon. We were enjoying a braai with friends under the shade of our large pecan nut tree. Quite suddenly the refreshing breeze became strong gusts, the sky went dark quickly and we rushed all the barbeque stuff inside as it started to rain, then hail. The hail became a thundering noise, shredding leaves off trees and plants, filling up gutters, and covering the lawn so thickly that when it was all over our humid summer's day had become a temporary winter wonderland! We made 'snow' balls out of pellets of hail about the size of peas, and even managed an angel in the snow ... well ice really. 18 hours later our gutters still have ice in them (just a little but it is there) and our poor garden is a real mess of finely chopped leaves over everything!