An occasional journal
Weather
A Charm of Goldfinches
Mar 4th 2018
Admin1 is reading The Lake by Lotte and Soren Hammer.
We scored 8.5 on the GWQ.
Black and White
Mar 3rd 2018
Blackbird and starling sheltering from the snow.
One snowy day in March, Admin2 is reading The Familiar 1: One Rainy Day in May by Mark Z Danielewski (hard to categorise, but a labour of love with masses of magical illustrations, typographical tricks and interleaved narratives, each in a different font, and an enormous number of volumes to follow).
An Ice Day
Feb 28th 2018
Last night was the coldest night since 2010: -5.3 °C and the coldest day since 2013: -0.1 °C. As for the solar panels: not a watt.
Admin1 is reading Trophy by Steffan Jacobsen. Admin2 is reading Graft by Matt Hill; a cyborg from another dimension meets some prize specimens of Manchester low life.
Twilight
Feb 26th 2018
Snow is coming, flake by flake.
Admin2 is reading Harvest by Jim Crace; all hell breaks loose in a preindustrial village when strangers and the threat of sheep arrive.
We scored 12 on the GWQ.
It’s booktally day. We have now read 1280 books between us in 5 years, 272 since last year.
Good Morning
Feb 24th 2018
Here comes the sun.
Admin1 is reading A Room Full of Bones by Elly Griffiths. Admin2 is reading Things Can Only Get Worse? by John O’Farrell; a Labour Party activist gets it wrong every time.
Cloud of the Day: Iridescence
Feb 19th 2018
Actually this cloud was spotted in Manchester last week on a rare occasion when it wasn’t raining.
Admin2 is reading The Child by Sebastian Fitzek; a terminally ill boy believes he is the reincarnation of a serial killer.
Weather of the Day: light snow
Feb 6th 2018
A few snowflakes in some thin film iridescence.
Admin1 is reading Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds. Admin2 is reading Close Quarters by William Golding.
We scored 9 on the GWQ.
Orange…
Feb 1st 2018
…Marmalade
Storms on Jupiter.
January’s weather was averagely cloudy, cold, wet and windy.
Admin2 is reading Exit West by Moshin Hamid; a fable/allegory/romance about teleporting refugees which makes no sense at all.
Burning Sky
Jan 28th 2018
Sunset on the warmest night this year.
Admin2 is reading Winter by Ali Smith, an engaging story of the friendship between a young woman and a 101-year-old man, and their mutual interest in the life and works of Pauline Boty. We are watching Witnesses saison 2 (which started off well but got a bit loopy and implausible) and scored 9.5 on the GWQ.
Cloud of the Day: Crepuscular Rays
Jan 26th 2018
The left-hand one appears to be levitating some crazy clown riding a banana.
Admin2 is reading H(A)PPY by Nicola Barker; a story about a creative person who cannot settle down in a utopia, with lots of coloured words, a bit like The Gu(a)rdi(a)n in its current incarnation.
We watched The Tunnel series 3 which was somewhat preposterous.
Cloud of the Day: Triangular contrail
Jan 24th 2018
This very neat straight-edge trail appeared in the sky this morning.
Admin1 is reading Elysium Fire by Alastair Reynolds.
Cloud of the Day: Altostratus
Jan 23rd 2018
Admin2 is reading The Twelfth Department by William Ryan.
Cloud of the Day: Curly contrail
Jan 22nd 2018
Today the solar panels amassed 1kWh on the earliest day of the year (by one day) to date.
Admin1 is reading House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds.
We scored 7 on the GWQ
Cloud of the Day: Pink Incus
Jan 19th 2018
This cloud passed over us earlier and turned a sunny day into a rainy night.
Admin1 is reading The Prefect by Alistair Reynolds. Admin2 is reading The Crow Girl by Eric Axl Sund.
Weather of the Day: Graupel
Jan 16th 2018
Tiny snowballs falling from the sky.
Admin1 is reading The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes. Admin2 is reading Be Awesome by Hadley Freeman; tips for girls who want to shine.
Weather of the Day: Frost
Jan 7th 2018
Admin1 is reading The Vinyl Detective: The Run-out Groove by Andrew Cartmel, a jolly jape with added cats. Admin2 is reading The Tottenham Outrage by MH Baylis.
Weather of the Day: Rain
Jan 3rd 2018
Storm Eleanor blowing by. Nothing dramatic in these parts.
Admin1 is reading The Tottenham Outrage by MH Baylis, an intriguing contemporary mystery centred on (and sympathetic to) the Hasidic community of north-east London, coupled with a fictionalised account of the real Tottenham Outrage of 1909 — an event of which we had never heard, despite both living in the area for some years.
Admin2 is reading The Vinyl Detective: The Run-out Groove by Andrew Cartmel, a lively adventure which crackled along at either 45 or 78 rpm according to the cover quotes.
Coffee of the day: Percol Black & Beyond.
Don’t Swallow Litres, and Watch the Parkin Eaters
Dec 31st 2017
Storm Dylan failed to bring blowing winds, hard rain etc so here’s our New Year pudding. We scored 7 on the GWQ, bringing our yearly average to 8.92 which is an increment on last year.