Saturday 29th September - A week of silver linings

This week has been the rainiest for quite a while.

On Tuesday I drove to Newick and spent some time waiting around. It had rained heavily a couple of times as I made my way along the A272, but had stopped  by the time I arrived. I had to spend quite a while waiting around, and ended up just standing on the green, warmed by the sun, just enjoying the view.




picture copied from the village website: http://www.newick.net/

Looking in one direction, the sky was a deep, luminous blue, as blue as in the photograph above. Everything seemed pin-sharp in the aftermath of the rain. Looking the other way, the sky was a dark slatey grey colour. The rain clouds were deep and strong with a glowering intensity. The contrast was so striking. The two weather-worlds, and my experiences of them so close, so different. At one moment I had been driving through blinding spray, wipers at full speed, and now I was standing in a world that seemed brand new, calm, still, waiting.

Wednesday was another day of sudden heavy showers. The clouds were a paler grey, but highlighted with brilliant shining borders where they overlapped. Way up high, a skein of geese flew south, in a beautiful undulating V-shape. Further along, the clouds were thinner, revealing ragged patches of sky of the palest, palest clear blue.

Cumulus mediocris and congestus over Swifts Creek, Australia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud

This picture isn't anything to do with this post. I was looking for pictures of geese flying in a V formation against a grey sky, and found this instead.  It is worth looking at a full screen version.

I have found the beauty of the skies, and the dramatic changes in the quality of the light to be tremendously encouraging and uplifting in my travels around the county this week