Tuesday 14 March 2023
Apparently, it’s -4 °C with a feels-like of -9 °C. Almost every morning in Scotland, when I come downstairs, I open the front door and stand outside. This morning, beautiful blue sky and a dusting of snow, but, wow, it felt like -9 °C. Yesterday, it rained almost all day, sometimes north-ish to south-ish, sometimes south-ish to north-ish, sometimes driving rain, sometimes big clouds of the kind of rain that gets you drenched in seconds. I walked around the ‘garden’ twice, the second time when the rain had turned to sleet. The ground, considering how little rain we’d had in the weeks prior, was squishy and squelchy, to the extent I’d hear it as a sound effect on, say, radio and think it was exaggerated. With all the moss in the ground, there’s good squishing potential. The various waterways across the land were roaring streams and the river under our driveway bridge was virtually a white water rapid. I realise that when you live somewhere rural, remote, on an island, and probably more other places than I can think of, you have no choice but to pay attention to the weather because it affects so much of what you can do.
Yesterday, had we wanted to turn right out of our drive, we wouldn’t have been able to get as far as where other routes turn off our road, in other words our road was effectively closed to us in one direction. Local Facebook groups are invaluable when it comes to road closures, advice, etc. Someone had taken a photo of the enormous flood across the road. We’ve been forced to turn back once before when that’s happened. Apparently, it happens about fifteen times a year.
This morning, taking into consideration the heightened water levels and the amount of rain, I expect the road will be icy. I might do an early patrol today to check it out.
I collected and returned the wildlife cameras yesterday. Hares and foxes, fortunately not at the same time. The other day, we did notice quite a lot of tufts of soft fur in one area of the garden, not in front of a camera. I am mildly concerned about the thought of the wildlife cameras picking up a predator-prey encounter.
I have been sitting at my laptop for at least twenty minutes supposedly writing this. Nothing is forthcoming and I can’t stop looking out the window. I’ll just give in to it and look out the window some more.
