Parakeet fashion:
In preparation for Clearing (you can check out our Clearing Diary at http://greenwich-clearing2012.blogspot.co.uk/), we’ve magically transported our whole office to the Mansion Site at Avery Hill…
As far as I’m concerned, there are many benefits of this (apart from the obvious). For example: A lovely spacious office; a semi-permanent desk for the duration (no more hot desking!); lunch delivered (great for lazy peeps like me); but best of all: the lovely surroundings!
Each lunch time I go for a walk in the grounds (Mansion site was a private house belonging to the North family in Victorian times, lucky them!) amongst the rare tree specimens and well-kept lawns. There are not many people around at this time of the year, so the place is usually tranquil except for the colony of green parakeets. These cheeky birds love flying around in large flocks above the campus or hopping (with accompanying squawks) from tree to tree!
I’m looking forward to exploring the glass houses of the famous Avery Hill Winter Garden soon…
Lookout for that tornado:
Not long ago I made a trip to Avebury in Wiltshire for some meteorology based activities, but didn’t anticipate on witnessing a tornado into the bargain!
Avebury is famous for the stone circle, and while my companion and I had walked around admiring it, we noticed a big column of black smoke. So, rather than enjoying the ambience of peaceful skies we watched more billowing clouds of smoke coming from 100 cars on fire at a scrapyard in Thornhill (a few miles away). On our way home, we still had half an eye on the plume of smoke, which meant we also noticed dark storm clouds gathering and the formation of a ‘funnel cloud.’
Of course we got very excited, as seeing a funnel cloud in this country is a once in a lifetime event… We watched for about fifteen minutes as the funnel formed, disappeared then reformed.
We took an even better photo than this of the funnel cloud virtually ‘touching down’ to become a tornado, but as we are planning to enter a Weather Club competition with the photo I can’t share it on the blog just yet – sorry guys!
Their website is worth a look if you like things meteorological: http://www.theweatherclub.org.uk/
J’s record of the week:
‘Uncloudy day’
by
The Staple Singers
As you know, The Staple Singers have appeared on my ‘record of the week’ slot before, with the very catchy ‘Let’s do it again.’ This song is from 1956, a little bit earlier in their career when they were with the Vee-Jay record label and had just emerged as an up and coming gospel/folk band.
I like The Staple Singers so much that any excuse seems like a good excuse to have them on the my blog again, and a bit of cloud watching gave me the perfect opportunity! Jerushah X
