Tuesday 5 February 2013

An Rather Extraordinary Day

For most of this year, which is now into its second month would you believe, here in Hawkes Bay we have been having temperatures into the late 20s and 30s.  Yesterday it was a fairly moderate 27℃ and I was a very happy bunny.  So imagine my discombobulation (gosh the spillchucker allowed that) when today the rain has set in overnight (cancelling our doubles croquet match this morning) and the temperature is, wait for it.....12℃ (yes, really, that's 53℉).  Last night I went to bed with the air conditioning taking the edge off the heat of the night and this evening I could justify putting it on to provide some warmth.

This morning I woke up to an email from Pat on Lewis.  The central heating in my house on Lewis is playing up yet again.  Mind you with winds gusting up to 127 mph a short while ago and more storms forecast anything could happen.  This map shows that the heaviest seas on the planet will be hitting the Outer Hebrides in the next day or two.

 
Do you ever get misled by the constant phone and cellphone beeps and rings from the television or is it just me who seems constantly to be looking to see what's happening when the television is on?  Today someone in the background of a new programme had a phone which beeped and I spent a few puzzled moments before I realised that it wasn't my phone.

The highlight of my day was solving the start of the hardest Codecracker that I've ever done.  I've been at it since last Wednesday.  Pitiful it's been.

Night night.

16 comments:

  1. Same weather here... Freezing!
    Can't win.
    Come back summer.

    Hope your northern home is ok
    :)

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    1. Oh yes, Fiona, please come back summer. It's Wednesday morning and I'm in jeans, jacket and body warmer! The house on Lewis is OK but the heating has gone - yet again. It doesn't like the wind and the torrential rain.

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  2. I have a friend here who uses the word "discombobulation" so regular, that I'm no longer amused at the sound of it.
    Weather here fluctuates all willy nilly as well. The mornings can be cool with rain, and by 10am it's extremely warm. Some nights I can sleep with a blanket and others I dare not attempt this.
    Hope everything will be okay at your other home on Lewis. That map you showed looks quite threatening.
    There is an ad on tv, that the first time it aired with a cell phone beep in the background, I thought it was mine as well, so you're not alone.

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    1. I had no idea that the word was that commonly used Virginia. I have now posted a photo with an indication of the results of those seas.

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  3. What's Codecracker? Could do with something to pass the time. Whilst sitting out freezing wind and sleet.

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    1. Codecracker is a word game like the Codeword in The Times. There is an interactive version here at Simon Shuker's Codecracker.

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    2. OOOh I was going to ask about CodeCracker and totally forgot...thanks Adrian.

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  4. I can imagine that drop in tempterature being a bit of a shock to the body. Thinking about it though, our winter seesaw here has had a span of at least 20 degrees C as well (around -15/+5). No winds to quite compare with the Outer Hebrides though... I hope your house will withstand them!
    As for the beeps and rings on TV I sometimes jump up unnecessarily too. This in spite of the fact that most of the time I have my own mobile on silent as I don't use it much for phone calls.

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    1. I think, Monica, the problem with the 30 to 10 range is that it goes from hot to cold and necessitates a complete reversal of one's clothing and thinking in the middle of summer. -15 to +5 still requires a slight clothing adjustment outdoors but indoors you would presumably wear the same clothes and just adjust the heating (in Scotland mine would adjust automatically to keep the house at a constant 22 deg during the day). In New Zealand there tends to be a very different outlook because houses are not particularly well insulated and people tend not to adjust heating but to adjust clothing although this is beginning to change as better insulation and double glazing become more common.

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    2. Living in a flat there's only so much I can do myself about indoors climate. Summer heatwaves are harder to compensate for than winter cold spells here though (no air conditioning).

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  5. Oh my goodness! That weather map shows wind so strong over your poor little island that it can't go any blacker!
    Re. Temps here, that rain/ cold band swept over Tauranga while I was getting fracture clinicked yesterday afternoon. When we got home James rushed inside to get the poor old hobbledehoy an umbrella, and he said he could feel the house's hot air rushing out past him when he opened the front door! Did you get some decent rain? We did.

    Re. phone rings, I have been watching old movies and heard a ring the other day that was identical to one I grew up with... sadly, having not heard it for thirty-mumble years, I still thought it was for me!

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    1. Well according to the news the next morning Hawkes Bay got 50mm (sic) of rain but we certainly didn't get that here in Napier and the rivers didn't budge an inch so I think he the weatherman might have misread the figure. I'd be very surprised if here we even got 5mm.

      It seems that we are not alone in reacting to bells and so on on the TV and films.

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    2. PS, the doc says he thinks I broke the other leg too... just below the knee. Apparently it will heal by itself as long as I keep off it. When I pointed out how do I get to the loo, then, he looked thoughtful.
      After some thought he decided I could start putting more weight on the broken ankle. Right. Can you detect the teeny tiny fatal flaw?

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    3. No wonder you were in such pain with that leg too Katherine. I hope that the flaw won't actually be fatal just metaphorical.

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  6. My cousin was complaining about the winds outside of Sterling, I thought he was being a whimp.

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    1. No Cat. Definitely not. The winds were pretty ferocious: hurricane force on the periphery of the country.

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