Après le Déluge

-
Afon Ogwen from Brynbella


Après le Déluge, a calm and sunny day today. Four inches of rain in one storm is a fair amount of water. Apparently we can lay claim to have been the wettest place in Wales yesterday. The dark patches in the water in the photograph are the enormous boulders that are normally the prominent features of the gorge below the bridge at Brynbella. We lived for some years on the crossroads just above here, while James was little; so we used to go down to this spot often. In summers then, we could sit and picnic on the rocks: I've got pictures of my late mom doing just that. A far, far cry from the boiling waters this morning. Things are definitely changing rapidly; the climate is becoming unstable to a degree I've never seen before. This is the second 'named' storm in the last month: not normal, but becoming so. We had two months of high summer in April and May, with temperatures close to thirty-two Celsius, hotter than the Med. Now this. Again. It seems to be the new seasonal pattern and can only get worse and probably even more unpredictable if the issue of climate change continues to be ignored by the powers that be.

Comments

  1. Joe Stoner27 August 2020 at 10:07

    I could hear, for only the second time in 35 years of living by the Ogwen, the rocks being moved last night! Most of the rocks that we see, when she's not boiling and draining a huge catchment, are fixed. So what's moving are rocks displaced from upstream to be deposited where? An interesting PhD me thinks!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Joe Stoner27 August 2020 at 10:32

    It's not just the "powers that be" that wilfully ignore the issues of Climate Change mate! The majority (bodes ill for the next election!!) are in "Denial" and are desperate to leap on a plane to shove Co2 JUST where it's not needed and is most detructive! I use this as an exemplar cos the other examples of short termism are legion.
    There is a day every year where we start going into the NEXT year's "allowance" of our Finite Planet's resources and we passed it a couple of days ago. But that's not the point, however these variables are calculated, the day is getting earlier and earlier each year, just like the Doomsday clock! We just go on and on writng checks on our descendant's Finite Planet's account!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Of Feedback & Wobbles

-
Image
Many years ago I came up with an analogy for poorly damped feedback loops. The feedback loop that prompted this frankly tart analogy was indeed a horror. Anyone who remembers shame-faced their first attempts at clutch control resulting in the good old kangaroo launch across the lights only to stall in the middle of the crossroads will have some idea of the kind of data transfer lag involved in said system. The analogy I made was that of a large blancmange. Untouched, a model of stasis and eminently stable and predictable; but prod the bugger and the resultant chaotic behaviour needs a very complex physical model and some very decent computing horsepower to predict its outputs, if at all. The system in question was a large and complex audio-visual display at what eventually became 'The Electric Mountain' in Llanberis. We were ultimately contracted to maintain the thing having been witness to and peripherally involved in its installation. Certainly not involved in its des...
Read more

A Time of Connection

-
Image
I was just reflecting on the vacuum of continuity that's left behind when someone dies: that sudden sense of disjoint, of fracture, in one's personal history that takes one completely by surprise at the oddest moments. These pinch-points in memory can often yield some surprising revelations of fact about periods in one's past. One such occurred to me tonight, tending my rather lazy meal of pizza in its journey from shrink-wrap to mouth via the oven. Al's recent demise still catches me out from time to time: the space he left bounded by forty plus years of friendship. But the thing that struck me tonight was just how much change was happening on a personal and social level in the very early years of our acquaintance. Between moving here from Birmingham in September 1980 and our buying our first proper house eighteen months later, all manner of things occurred that would chart the course of our lives to the present day. At around the time of our meeting Alan & Irene [...
Read more

Sister Ray

-
Image
Ray Keats - aka Ann Key - local artist & family friend, died this morning. She'd been ill for some years, but never let it get in the way of her work or of tending to the massive network of friends, colleagues and fans she had accumulated over the decades. Her house on the High Street of Rachub, just below where we live - a former cockle factory(!) - bought many years ago when she and her late husband Ronald moved here from Manchester to set up home in Yr Achub, is currently still home to her paintings and drawings, and the front window displays her work, including the last drawing she made in hospital, just days before she died. Her good friend Colin has been a diamond in her latter years, looking out for her and just being there when she needed him. She will be much missed by this tiny community of ageing bohemians up here in the hills, but suffice it to say, George, her cat, will be well looked after now she's gone.
Read more