Tales of Home [7]

Couple of sneaky pictures I took at work this morning out the window!

Lovely pics Its so peaceful & tranquil 1st thing in the morning Best time of the day, before all the bodkins get up & ruin it !

About a mile from here there's a cove that when the wind and waves are right can make its own tidal waves. I took this video the other day so I could explain the effect to some government know-it-all types I've been talking to. Have any of you seen or heard of these sorts of things in your parts of the World?

Check out the Severn Bore:

Wow! I'd hate to have that coming up my back ditch!

Some pictures I took earlier today.

A boat for David to look at, taken early this morning looking roughly south down the Firth of Forth-



After work I was out ay my old childhood stomping ground, where I grew up in Sandbank.
This one is looking north, more or less, towards the head of the Holy Loch to the sandbanks at the lochs head. According to one version the village got its name of Sandbank because ships used to tie up at the lochs head to get out of storms and sailors, having nothing else to do would write home form the 'sandbanks'.
Another version says a ship returned from the Holy Land, carrying a load of sand for some reason sunk in the loch, giving the name of Sandbank to the village on its shores and the name Holy Loch to the Loch- but that one always sounded even more unlikely than the first one to me.
The old nameof the villageis now the name of the hill behind it- Finbracken- but this is just an angliscied form of the gaelic original which was a three part compound word- fionn + bhreac + an. Fionn means white, clear, or bright, and it also has connections to an older Irish Celtic mythical heroine (the modern English form of which is the name Fiona) and breacan is a descriptive name from breac, spotted or striped, it can also be applied to the pattern of tartan. None of which helps too much in clarifying why they choose that name!





Kilmun Hill on the opposite shore of the Holy Loch. That pier you can just see the end of on the rightof the picture is the pier the US Navy built for their ship and drydock that used to dominate the loch, boats taking changes of shift and passengers and god knows what else used to go back and forth every twenty minutes. Hard to imagine now but this place was a hub of activity: queues of taxis, doughnut and burger stands and a massive carpark with an inexplicable number of Harley Davidsons parked in it, and a group of kids with one of them maybe in a kilt with red hair and budding crabbit frown convincing new sailors that £5 for a Haggis Hunting Licence was a steal-



House above Kilmun (I posted pictures of it some time last year when I was over there, or maybe the year before   ) -



And home for sunset-

oooh nice!

Well those were yesterday- last night -10 and today this!









And its still snowing!!

Pettytyrant101 wrote:(...)
House above Kilmun (I posted pictures of it some time last year when I was over there, or maybe the year before   ) -

I love that house on the top, such delightful random exterior. It looks like the houses in a small village decided to huddle together for warmth.

It decided to finally be winter here. It got a bit warmer during the day but when I was outside in both the morning and the evening it was at 18 F (-8 C), and tonight the wind chill was at 3 F (-16 C). I'm staying in the city temporarily so it's marginally warmer here than out in the 'burbs, but I forgot to bring my scarf and long johns with me.

We've had flurries recently, but they're calling for more than a foot of snow this weekend. I'll believe it when I see it, though.

The chill is making its way South here. -3c so not as cold as other places, but I am next to the sea which makes things a little warmer.

Still not nice having to get up and to the train though... my ears were hurting!!

get a nice woolly hat with ear flaps. its funny how being near the sea is warmer, why is that? the sea is freezing cold. I noticed that myself though when I go to Scarborough its always more windy but a bit warmer than inland.

Lucky! We haven't really gotten any snow since I've been visiting here (I mean, like 1/16th of an inch doesn't count i don't think). Apparently it's been too cold or something. Although one day was 28 degrees Fahrenheit, it also got down to -18 two nights ago! Thankfully I do have a scarf and my long johns though.

Mrs Figg wrote:get a nice woolly hat with ear flaps. its funny how being near the sea is warmer, why is that? the sea is freezing cold. I noticed that myself though when I go to Scarborough its always more windy but a bit warmer than inland.

It's actually warmer than the air: it may feel colder because it conducts heat more efficiently than air.

As to why it's warmer, it's because it's more massive than the atmosphere, so takes more time to heat up or cool down. So the oceans oscillate around the annual average temperature at smaller amplitude than the atmosphere, and with a bit of time delay as well.

Took the words out of my mouth Halfy... well the shorter ones.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Well those were yesterday- last night -10    and today this!









And its still snowing!!  

Love these pics

Forest Shepherd wrote:Lucky! We haven't really gotten any snow since I've been visiting here (I mean, like 1/16th of an inch doesn't count i don't think). Apparently it's been too cold or something. Although one day was 28 degrees Fahrenheit, it also got down to -18 two nights ago! Thankfully I do have a scarf and my long johns though.

You cant go wrong with long johns !! I even wear a santa hat in bed if its too cold, can see now why they used to wear night caps in days of yore !

The alleged Snowpocalypse II is supposed to start tonight.  Most of the forecasts I've seen are calling for like 18-24 inches in my area (46-61 cm).  That would be the most we've gotten in one storm since this time in 2010, I think.  Still reluctant to believe that though since we've seen a lot of overhyped storms.  The predictions have had the storm coming further south though so if it is bad, the DC-Baltimore area will be harder hit than they predicted a week ago.  We had a dusting (maybe like .5-.75 inches) on Wednesday night, which was the first snow of the season, though the main storm was still over the Midwest-ish at that point.

I heard on the news today that the US was gonna be hit by one of the nastiest snow storms in donkeys years, how true that will be only you will know, Keep safe, keep warm, & drinking booze can lead to hypothermia if you get cold ( must send the EX a case )

My parents were both traveling for work (separately) this week, but they came back last night, a day early.  I did the same thing though I hadn't been as far away.  Even though I'm skeptical, I didn't want to take a chance at being snowed in away from home.  I only narrowly avoided being snowed in at school for a week during the 2010 double storm and I still remember that close call.

yep I saw that on the news too. its a good excuse to stay indoors in the warmth. I sometimes wear a hat in bed too when its freezing, theres nothing worse than a freezing head sticking out of bed and a warm body inside the bed. obviously its not a sombrero or a pointy wizard hat.

It was snowing down around DC this morning, and started up here in the northeast part of Maryland around 4-4:30 PM. The cars are in the driveway with the wipers up and we're stocked up on food and milk so I think we're good.

So maybe now you'll have time to watch Petty's edits?

Damn right Dave!!!!