That Storm Damage in Full

While I still maintain that giving storms names is a bad idea on the grounds that it only encourages them, it turns out that sarcastically putting their names in quotes just makes things worse. Certainly, Storm Ali did live up to its amber warning on Wednesday, took out our power halfway through the morning (which wasn’t then restored until Thursday morning) and downing enough trees on the roads around us to make going to my dental appointment in Notso Bigtown a bit of a choose-your-own-adventure as we had to backtrack several times to find a route that didn’t have a large amount of interesting looking firewood blocking the way.

But what the Weather Gods taketh away, the Weather Gods also giveth. For a while I’ve been looking at our poor dead olive tree and thinking I really should replace with something that was less of a sad reminder of my neglect. It was as we were sitting there watching it being rocked wildly in its pot by the storm (what can I say, when the internet is down you have to make your own entertainment – indeed I ended up forced to complete this year’s tax return, so every cloud and all that), that I noticed something strange at the foot of the trunk:

Yup. It’s aliiiiiive. Really, you can’t keep a good tree down.

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Flyers’ Remorse

Normally, September’s habit of delivering a settled spell of sunny mild weather just as you’ve given up on seeing the sun in any meaningful sense before April is the only compensation we get after a rubbish summer. So this year, having had an actual summer for once, it seems a bit churlish to complain of this September’s endless succession of wind, rain, unforecasted showers and now an amber weather warning courtesy of the impending Storm ‘Ali’. The problem is, we’ve taken to planning around these Indian summers, and this week sees us hosting the Bigtown Bike Breakfast, so I’m complaining anyway, churlish or not.

Today, after a miserable start, we had enough of a break in the weather for me to spend a little time out flyering Bigtown’s hardy cycle commuters to let them know there were free bacon rolls in the offing just for the pleasure of riding to work by bike – and by ‘flyering’ I mostly mean ‘standing in one part of the cycle path watching all the cyclists whizz by unflyered on a different section of the path and then, when I have relocated to the place where all the cyclists were before, watching them zip past the spot where I was standing originally’.

Empty cycle path

Even when I did track down a few cyclists, there was the challenge of getting them to take a flyer without physically impeding their progress. My technique for this is to smile, stand off to one side, and hold the flyer out for an easy passing grab. Mostly they were happy enough to either take one on the fly (kudos to chap cycling along no handed making a phone call who spotted me, switched his phone to the other hand, grabbed the flyer with a brief thumbs up, and continued on his way without even breaking cadence), or slow or even stop for a brief chat. But there’s always one or two who have to swerve past me unnecessarily with a look that suggests I was attempting to hand them a bag of dog poo or a fizzing stick of dynamite marked ACME. Your loss, miserable cycling people, that’s all I can say. May all your winds be headwinds, and your roads scattered with blackthorn…

On the plus side, one cyclist actually caught me: he was on his e-bike and I think had chased me down on the road in for the express pleasure of telling me all about it, so delighted was he with his new machine. (If you are a cycle campaigner in need of cheering up, I suggest you find your nearest e-bike and ask its owner what they think of it. You’re almost guaranteed to get a ‘cycling has transformed my life’ story which can keep you going through the next three meetings where the coonsil explain why they can’t put a decent cycle track in somewhere because they need a redundantly wide road to stay that way ‘as a spare‘). It was a pleasure to reward him with the news of a free breakfast, although as he was already the happiest cyclist in Bigtown, I’m not sure he needed the boost. Still, to those that have shall be given …

To Market, to Market

The good thing about having Bigtown farmers’ market move to the train station, where it is easily accessible by bike (instead of out on the bypass where it was only accessible by bike if you were completely fearless) is that on a pleasant Sunday morning it’s a real joy to pootle down to fill your boots (and your panniers) with good things.

The downside is that when the weather decides it’s going to be one of those days when the forecast says it won’t rain, and the rain radar says it isn’t raining, and yet wet stuff is unmistakably coming out of the sky and continues to do so all day – you* still feel obliged to go down there by bike.

Looking on the bright side (if you squint a bit, anyway) I do at least now know that the raingear I reproofed on Friday in an unusually far-sighted move, is still Waterproof in Scotland. Plus, of course, the small matter of coming home with a bike pannier full of pies.

However, I really hope that September is not starting as it means to go on, because in the course of the month, I seem to have planned two epic rides for cake, one accessible bike open day and a bike breakfast. Here’s hoping the raingear won’t be too severely tested over the coming weeks…

* And by ‘you’ obviously I mean ‘I’ because the other half sensibly felt absolutely no compunction at spending the morning on a nice dry sofa.

On a Sparkly Afternoon

When you’re painfully aware that summer is really on its way out …

Sometimes you’ve got to turn a ride for the paper into being a tourist in your own town.

And take the scenic route back, of course.

In the absence of artisinal glaces, there may have been mini donuts consumed

Meanwhile, in baffling pipeline news, the workmen at the site were apparently been spending the afternoon building little stacks of rocks. Perhaps they too want to pretend they’re on holiday.

Do Bee Do Bee Do

After the weather we’ve had, it’s been pretty depressing to set off on the bike in a jacket, gloves and tweed cap – I’ve grown rather fond of pottering round in a t-shirt and shorts. And I’m not the only one feeling the weather. Venturing out this afternoon to rescue the washing from yet another shower, I came across a dopey bumble bee that seemed to have given up the ghost.

A teaspoonful of honey* and water seemed to do the trick.

It’s rare you get to see a bee properly up close, so I made the most of it as it lapped up the water. Insect tongues seem to be all the rage this week …

It soon perked up, had a poo (or whatever the bee equivalent** is – certainly something shot out its back end; I told you I was watching it closely), groomed itself and as I left it to it, was struggling to get airborne again. I hope in my eagerness to help I haven’t contributed to some sort of apine obesity crisis…

I hope everyone in London is enjoying their break from the heat, because I can tell you, I’d be very happy to see the heatwave return up here. And so would my new pal the bee …

*Post-hoc googling suggests I should have just used sugar and water rather than honey so hopefully I haven’t spread any nasty germs

** Googling bee poo suggests that they do … as always, you step into specialist fora at your own peril as an Internet rabbithole awaits.

The Weather: A Public Service Announcement

As the rest of the country swelters can I just say:

It is not that hot here.

I don’t know about the rest of Scotland, but it was raining here just a few days ago, and it’s only really just brightened up again, and it was in fact a bit too cold to be wearing shorts yesterday.

And the grass is still green, and even though it’s reached the point today where even I will seek the shade, it’s still not that hot here.

There are few meteorological advantages to living in this damp little corner of Scotland – but this is one of them: when the rest of the country has finally had enough of the heat, and the chorus of moaning about the weather reaches a deafening level, and everyone else is longing for it to rain …

… That is when we will finally have our summer.

And it’s bloody gorgeous

Lurking

Heading to the garden yesterday afternoon to pick some beetroot, I encountered a problem:

Can’t see it? Let me help:

I did wonder whether I could sneak in and grab a couple of beetroot without disturbing it but it took fright (I say took fright: it didn’t so much run off as saunter so it’s possible they’re aware they would have us wrapped around their little fingers, if hares had little fingers). Fortunately the hares seem fonder of sitting on beetroot than eating it, so there was plenty for the beetroot salad* I had planned for my writers’ group pot luck dinner.

Other things lurking among the veg are, frankly, a bit less welcome:

I may have to learn to love courgettes. Recipes welcome, preferably ones that don’t end ‘and you can barely taste the courgette’ as that doesn’t really fill me with a sense that it’s worth growing.

Anyway, the salad seemed to go down well and after an evening of good food and great chat, I realised with a bit of shock that it was 10 o’clock and I had better get on my bike and ride home. I do love these long light and warm summer evenings. The heatwave may have left this corner of Scotland (it rained for most of today) but we’re still getting enough warm weather to make riding at night a positive pleasure – especially when there are no cars, and the only other thing moving as I made my way home were the bats dancing above my head.

*Beetroot, feta cheese and parsley – known as ‘Barbie salad’ because of the colour the feta cheese goes