Harvest in Highlands slow because of poor weather conditions

It seems that farmers in the Inverness, Nairn and surrounding areas are quite far behind in getting in their grain harvests this year because of the poor weather conditions, with many fields being water-logged so making it difficult to get combine harvesters onto the land. This article in Farmers Weekly focusses on one farm near Nairn.

People like me who do most of our shopping in supermarkets, or even farm shops, can be blissfully unaware of where their food comes from and the weather-related difficulties that can have a knock-on effect on supplies and prices. Currently I am in Spain and we had our own severe weather-related problems a few days ago, with 3 or 4 inches of rain falling in 24 hours on many areas nearby and in one particular area they 9 or 10 inches over the same period - rather dramatic and the price has been 10 deaths and several hundred made homeless, quite apart from the damage to road and rail links (with a number of crucial bridges having been damaged or destroyed) and to agricultural production. It is salutary to be reminded that nature still rules all our lives.

Prince Charles has a new job - weather forecaster

Well, I suppose if we ever have a[nother] revolution (see here) and finally dispense with our monarchical system of government (something I would much regret, for all sorts of reasons), then the Heir Apparent to the Throne, HRH The Prince of Wales (aka 'Prince Charles' or 'The Duke of Rothesay' whilst in Scotland, which is relevant to this story) should have no difficulty in finding alternative gainful employment as a television weather forecaster:



Prince Charles did his 'stint' as a weatherman during a visit to Pacific Quay in Glasgow, the headquarters of BBC Scotland. During his weather delivery, reference is made to a number of properties not usually mentioned in regular weather forecasts, but with specific 'Royal' connections:
- Dumfries House in Ayrshire houses an unique collection of Chippendale furniture and in 2007 was acquired alongwith its contents and adjoining land (about 2,000 acres) by a consortium of charities headed by Prince Charles, with the aim of keeping this historical jewel intact and accessible to the public;
- Balmoral [Castle] and its estate has, since 1848 when it was purchased by HM Queen Victoria, been the Scottish home of the British Royal Family;
- The Castle of Mey was purchased by the late Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother in 1952 as a 'holiday home' following the death of her husband, King George VI, and she spent many summers and briefer periods at other times of the year here until her death in 2002. In 1966 She transferred ownership of the castle to the Queen Elizabeth Castle of Mey Trust and since Her death the Trust has opened the castle and grounds/gardens to visitors, except during a period of about two weeks at the end of July and the early part of August when Prince Charles and his wife (known in Scotland as the Duke and Duchess of Rothesay) spend a holiday there - his wife is perhaps better known outside Scotland as the Duchess of Cornwall, after another of Charles' titles, Duke of Cornwall, traditionally held by the [male] Heir to the British Throne from birth - very importantly the Duchy of Cornwall is a major land and property owner and provides an independent income to the Heir.

I think Prince Charles did a pretty good job overall, specially for a first effort. However it would be remiss of me not to mention that when I first saw a recording of his appearance as a weather forecaster I could not quite get out of my head the idea that He was conducting a very clever parody of Himself as portrayed by satirist Rory Bremner:



You decide!

Addendum: I've just discovered a lengthier recording of Prince Charles' weather forecasting exploits to which is appended the same forecast being read by his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall - and I have say she is pretty good, too. You can see it here

Nairn today - looking out at a bleak scene, luckily I'm cosily inside

The view from my apartment around lunch-time today. The soundtrack in the background by the way is the BBC Scotland lunch-time news on BBC1.


Looking out to sea through the blizzard - it looks bleak and wild




Panning across from the harbour and the cricket pitch with the A96 and Marine Road just visible in the gloom




Panning back from Marine Road to the harbour and sea


- definitely a day when it is much better to be indoors if you possibly can. The cricket pitch looks just like an ice-rink at present and the side-streets looks pretty treacherous, too. Brrrrrr!

Near 'white-out' in Nairn for a while

- and the kids get their snow to toboggan on!

Nairn - Sunday, 20th December 2009 - Click on any image to see an enlargement - - Click on any image to see an enlargement -

The reversal of the natural order of things?

Is the world turning upside down?

Just a few moments ago I took screen-shots from my embedded weather data 'gizmo' which reveal the stark truth - today at 12.58 BST the temperature was 25 degrees Celsius at Inverness airport (about 7 miles from my home in Nairn, Scotland), whereas at 13.00 CEST today the temperature was 22 degrees Celsius at Murcia-St Javier airport, roughly 70Km from my Spanish 'casa de vacaciones' near Mazarrón.

Accordingly it's shorts and deck-shoe weather up here in Nairn today!

Weather reversal - 30 May 2009 Inverness airport - 12.58 BST - 25 degC Murcia-St Javier airport - 13.00 CEST - 22 degC

- to be quite frank, such an occurrence [a happy one for me] is such a rare event, it's well worth blogging about!

Spring forward, fall back

The subject at issue this morning is: would I already have been awake for over an hour this morning (and it's still not 8am) if it wasn't for the fact that the clocks went back an hour last night? Maybe for you it's different, but for me it's a definite 'no'! So today signals the real beginning of the winter season. It may be lighter this morning at this time than we have grown used to over the past few weeks, but that won't last long - by mid-December in this part of Scotland daylight won't really begin until not long before 10am. However, I can console myself by thinking that Spring is only 5-6 months away. Have a good day!

We're all doomed!

According to a Met Office study, global temperatures will plateau over the next couple of years before recommencing an inexorable upward movement. All sorts of dire things are in store for us - floods, droughts, you name it.

I'm not a climate-change sceptic, I simply don't know either way. I wonder if scientists do either. At any rate we'll soon have the empirical evidence ourselves as we live through the next few years. It seems that scientific opinions on what is happening vary wildly and that a huge battle is raging to win over governments and populations to a belief in one particular scenario (of future disasters, naturally). I repeat, I'm not a 'sceptic' - I prefer to think of myself as 'open-minded'.

Extreme summer heat in southern Spain takes its toll

A 34-year old farmer in the Murcian town of Alhama de Murcia died last week in hospital after having been affected by heat-stroke; so far 38 people have been affected by sun-stroke in Murcia province, of whom 3 have required hospitalisation. Alhama is less than 15 miles from where my Spanish home is located.

Yesterday afternoon the temperature in Cordoba (further south in Andalucia) reached an oven-like level - 49 degrees C! The good news is that cooler temperatures are expected next week, also that public campaigns about the dangers of prolonged exposure to high temperatures and the need for proper hydration seem to have lowered casualties from last year's levels.

This is not a problem we suffer from in Scotland, generally speaking,

A 'stinker' of a storm hits the Philippines

About 1,000 are feared to have died as a result of mudslides triggered by Typhoon Durian in the Philippines archipelago. Sounds horrible and it seems that Vietnam is at risk, too, so it's perhaps not over yet.

The title of this post relates to the name chosen for this typhoon; the Durian is described in the linked article merely as being "named after a spiky Asian fruit", but that is a very bland way of putting it, a bit like saying that Hitler was Chancellor of Germany between 1933 and 1945 without mentioning anything else about him! If you have ever smelled Durian (I have never eaten it) then it is not something you forget easily. On the other hand it is regarded as an addictive delicacy by certain people, even if many hotels and public transportation in the Far East ban it from their premises. I did voluntary work for a couple of years in Hong Kong and one of the others who I sometimes did evening duty rotas with was a Singaporean Catholic nun who used to suck boiled sweeties flavoured with Durian as this was the only way she could get her 'fix' and not be shunned by polite society. Read more about this delightful fruit here.