Saturday 28th October - Half term (3)

More outings, before the half term week comes to an end

Friday - about 7,000 steps

Another sunny day, another walk, this time round East Head at West Wittering.



Why have we never been here before? The tide was almost fully out when we started walking round the head (after an excellent fish-and-chip-lunch). The guide said the walk around the head would take about 45 minutes - maybe that is true when the tide is in, but we walked around a wide sweep of sand, sometimes along sandy strips that only appear at low tide. I took pictures -

we came onto the sand through that gap in the dunes, at the back of the beach huts. They have a great wall of sand blocking the front doors, and will to be dug out the next season

Did I mention the sky was blue?

You would have to zoom in on the picture above to see, but to the right of the white sail of the yacht is the great chalk scar in the cliffs behind Portsmouth, at Portsdown Hill. We could just make out the bobble of the radar system or whatever it is on the top of the cliff.

Most of the sand was firm and easy walking, but there was enough soft sand and shingle to make us glad when we got back to the car. I had plenty of time to rest on the way home, as the traffic queues were tremendous, but the driver found it hard work.


Saturday - 1500 steps

Lunch out again - this time at Camelia Botnar. This is a charitable foundation which provides residential apprenticeships for young people, and gives them employment in the cafe, garden centre, and training them to make the pottery, ironwork, and furniture they sell.  Afterwards, I took the opportunity to visit the church, St George's, at West Grinstead, which advertises "prayer book services and four-part choir". It is a small church, down a long, neatly hedged lane leading you into another, hidden, secretive part of the country. So close to the main A24 road you could almost see it...

The church was locked, with an explanation that the organ was being restored to there were pipes everywhere. We shall have to go back...

Only one more day of the half term left.

Tuesday 13th May - Sunset - photograph

We have had the most beautiful pale pink-and-blue-and-grey sunset sky, visible from our sitting room window, looking towards the North West.

And a brighter, silver and gold and duck-egg-blue sunset, visible from our west-facing dining room window. Something along these lines, but alive and vivid. My mobile phone camera really doesn't have much of a hope at capturing what I can see.

Watching the sky was a huge solace during the long months following my mother's stroke, back in October 2012. It  was a great source of - not sure what, exactly. Space. Peace, Breadth. Perspective.

I remember last year, when I was nearing the end of a course of cyclophosphamide treatment, and beginning to feel quite tired and run down, all I wanted was to be driven somewhere where I could sit in a warm, sheltered spot, and look at a wide, expansive view, of sky, or sea, or even better, both at the same time.

Right now, that's what I feel in need of. Space, Peace, Breadth, Perspective.

It's because my diary, from now until the beginning of August, has suddenly become crammed with a whole load of dates. There are routine hospital appointments and blood tests, and dates when we need to do things for my family, and dates and times when we need to do things for Best Beloved's family.
Not to mention the way that the Summer Term teaching always gets disrupted by SATS tests, schools trips, Inset days and Sports Days, so that I am continually altering and updating my calendar. (And I also need to remember that they want the school music reports completed before half term if possible).

It will be OK once I get my head around all the dates and events and deadlines. It's this interim state, when I'm still not clear in my mind about everything, that I get anxious that I will miss a crucial deadline, or appointment.

So, what shall I do? Just look at the sky, and breathe. See, feeling better already!     

Thursday December 5th - Pale winter morning

8 am

Opened the curtains just now to a pale blue/ dove grey/ rose pink/ golden clear sky, grass, trees, hedges white with frost.

Beautiful. The leaves on the huge oak trees at the bottom of the garden are such an amazing russet colour.

This is the kind of winter weather that I love - well, to be truthful, I love Looking at from the warmth of indoors. Not so keen on being out in it - cold feet, cold nose, cold fingers.

Sunday 25th November - Looking to the Skies

I realise that I take what I see in the skies as my hope, inspiration, meditation for the day.

The patterns of clouds, the colours, delicate shadings and gradations of hue all speak to me in some way, as I travel hither and thither through the week. I'd like to take more pictures of skyscapes, but I'm always busy, busy, busy and can't stop now.

On Thursday, the colour of the sky was the palest, most beautiful blue. The clouds arranged themselves in gentle billows, as though in a watercolour painting; careful shadings of dove grey shaded with pink stroked into a wet wash, the colours blending with utmost subtlety. I taught in two schools that day, one in the morning, one a good 45 minutes drive away in the afternoon. The lessons were bustling, active, with lots achieved in each session; djembe, and a year 5 and 6 class lesson on the intricacies of sonata form in the morning, ukulele and recorders in the afternoon. Then home through a golden dusk for piano teaching. A good day.

On Friday my daughter commented on the sky; a clean pale, slightly greenish blue topped by a knife edge layer of clouds as a weather front travelled across at high level. The beauty of the colours lifted my spirits as I braced myself for a long, hard day; exam rehearsals, recorders, samba, theory and piano lessons from 9:45 am until 6pm.

Yesterday was rain, rain, rain. Dark grey washed into pale grey washed into mid grey. The rain, and the clouds were persistent, but still not a uniform colour or texture.

Even the worst of the weather seems to come from a beautiful, subtle skyscape.

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