First day of Winter

December the 1st, the first day of winter and after what turned out to be a very windy autumn, the weather is right on cue with the first frost.

The winds have eased here in Wales and we had a lovely clear night last night with a nice moon.

Winter Moon

The temperature dropped to -0.7ºC overnight nd then this morning there was a frost and a lovely sunrise.

Frosty Sunrise

What a weekend. Lots of DIY on Saturday for me so our new ensuite shower-room is just about finished. This meant I could reward myself with a windsurf session on Sunday. Simon and I had a pretty mad sail in the estuary. The weather station was recording gusts of 50 knots.

It was just about perfect with my 4m sail, but not quite windy enough in the lulls. The worst /  best part was the rain. When the squalls came through it was complete white-out conditions and sailing along at 30 knots without being able to see anything becomes quite a challenge. It was good fun though!

I did have a bit of a problem when packing up though. The back door on my car decided to jam itself stuck. I did manage to get thing shome, but I can’t open the door and much of my windsurfing kit is now stuck in the car.

It was nice to be able to come back, straight into the beach room and into the new shower though.

The wind continued to blow all evening meaning that we couldn’t hear the TV over the wind outside. It is kind of funny sitting in the living room barely able to talk to each other because of the noise of the wind and rain.

I love living here when the weather is wild.

What lovely weather we’re having at the moment. Here’s the general view from our window over the past few days.

Rain through the window

According to the weather station we’ve had over 10cm of rain so far this month.

Expectations for Saturday 14th November have been high in the UK Windsurfing scene. The first major storm of the year and one that look set to produce some epic conditions. For me personally it was exciting too; for a change I would have some people to sail with as Steve, Simon and Jon had all said they would be at Ynyslas for 10am.

So, when the weather came on the news last night I wanted to listen to it. I ’shhhhsed’ Morgan and the first thing I hear them say is ‘don’t even think about going out on the sea tomorrow‘. Hmmmm, are they mad? This is what we wait for.

Well, it isn’t looking too bad out there at the moment. We had lots of rain overnight and gusts up to 44 knots, but at the moment its around 25 knots and southerly. The forecast is for it to pick up and go pretty mad around midday and then swing westerly later in the afternoon and ease of slightly.

There’s a huge swell as well and lots of rain. It’s going to be scary out there!

Todays Playground

Last night was the first dry, windless night we’ve had for a while so I put the moth trap out to see what we could catch.

We awoke this morning to the first frost of the winter and not a moth in sight. The first night since getting the moth trap that we’ve caught nothing.

Oh well, I guess that’s a small price to pay for a beautiful clear, frosty morning.

Windy Miller!

And so the wind keeps blowing!

It’s always windy here, but until the last week or so, the autumn had been fairly quiet. All that has changed now and autumn has shown its true colours. After a good windsurf session at the weekend, it has stayed windy all week so far. I was at work on Monday so couldn’t  get out, but did go for a sail on Tuesday. It was then my last day at work on Wednesday and although I couldn’t get out for a windsurf I did go for a Mountain Bike ride in the evening.

I met Dave at Angler’s Retreat where it was dark, cold, blowing a gale and pouring with rain. It didn’t take us long to decide to head to the relative shelter of Nant yr Arian for our ride. It wasn’t much better there, still pouring with rain, one degree warmer but it was a little sheltered from the winds. Once we were out and riding it wasn’t too bad though, and as usual it was enjoyable and I felt better for it. As I said a couple of days ago “Just get out there and do it!”

When I got home it was as usual extra windy. I’m sure this is one of the windiest places around, which is afterall one of the reson we picked this location to build our house. I could tell it was wild outside as Anna was snuggled up indoors watching the TV with the subtitles on. No matter how loud she had the volume she couldn’t hear the TV over the howling wind and hammering rain, so subtitles were the only option!

It’s still blowing a hoolie today as well and I’ve just got back from a brilliant windsurf session. Challenging conditions and therefore a very satisfying session for me as I coped well and had a sense of achievement after every run. I felt a little sorry for Simon though as he didn’t fare quite so well.

Not a bad way to spend my first day back as a full-time freelancer.

What a day!!

After a dry, still evening for the Machynlleth lantern parade yesterday, the wind and rain arrived in earnest this morning. Perfect for me as I had intended to go windsurfing. With gusts to 52.6 knots recorded on the Borth and Ynyslas Weather Station it looked as though it was going to be wild out there. Thankfully the rain eased off and the sun even came out, but the wind kept blowing and Simon and I had an excellent windsurf session at Ynyslas.

Me, Windsurfing at Ynyslas

It isn’t all good though. I was only commenting the other day how good the pampas grass was looking, but one day of ‘proper weather’ and it’s now looking a little sorry for itself. Most of the seed heads have snapped off and are strewn around the garden.

There is more to come as well. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday all look pretty windy at the moment.

3rd October 2009

Our second night of Moth Trapping. It started out really windy so I lashed the trap to a breeze-block to stop it from blowing away. Not ideal mothing conditions, and that was further compounded by a full moon. The wind was forecast to ease overnight though so I was still hoping for a catch.

I the end, the wind did gradually ease from around 25 knots NW to  5-10 knots. The temperature in the garden remained pretty steady and mild at 12ºC and there was no rain.

And in the morning we had six moths:

• 3 x Lunar Underwing
• 2 x Black Rustic
• 1 x Square Spot Rustic *

5th October 2009

It looked like a lovely evening, full moon, some clouds and barely any wind, but a little cool at around 10ºC and with rain forecast for later. We therefore put the trap out at dusk, but I retrieved it at around 10pm before the rain came. I’m glad I did as it started pouring down at around 2am and by 6am we had already had 11 mm of rain!

Still, there were a few moths in the trap despite the short time that the trap was out.

• 2x Common Marbled Carpet *
• 1x Lunar Underwing
• 1x Setaceous Hebrew Character
• 1x Blair’s Shoulder Knot *
• 1x Epiphyas postvittana (Light Brown Apple Moth)

7th October 2009

A cold night with temperatures down to 2.1ºC, but light winds and no rain.

• 5x Lunar Underwing

9th October 2009

A very mild night with temperatures only dropping to 13.7ºC. Quite wet to start with but it cleared later and winds were relatively light, with a maximum gust of 17.2 knots. Perfect for moth-trapping!

• 1x Brimstone Moth *
• 6x Black Rustic
• 1x Gold Spot *
• 3x Silver Y
• 1x Large Yellow Underwing *
• 2x Red Line Quaker
• 7x Setaceous Hebrew Character
• 16x Lunar Underwing
• 1x Beaded Chestnut *
• 1x Large Wainscot *
• 1x Shuttle-shaped dart *
• 1x Common Marbled Carpet
• 4x Featherd Ranunculus
• 4x Spruce Carpet? *

Wow! what a night! It took a while to go through that lot.

Totals so far for October

Nights Trapping: 4

• Lunar Underwing x 25
• Black Rustic x 8
• Square Spot Rustic x 1
• Setaceous Hebrew Character x8
• Blair’s Shoulder Knot x1
• Light Brown Apple moth x1
• Gold Spot x1
• Brimstone Moth x1
• Silver Y x3
• Large Yellow Underwing x1
• Red Line Quaker x2
• Beaded Chestnut x1
• Large Wainsscot x1
• Shuttle-shaped Dart x1
• Common Marbled Carpet x1
• Spruce Carpet x4
• Feathered Ranunculus x5

* = New species for me (not difficult at the moment as I’m very new to this!)

I don’t know what happened to the summer, but autumn is here with a bang. Out of all the seasons it is the one that you really notice arrive. Spring creeps up slowly on us with new flowers and longer days, Summer never really arrives and Winter just seems to happen without really ever starting. Autumn on the other hand marks its appearance with rain and gale force winds and it has arrived in Wales this week.

Autumn Leaves

Don’t get me wrong, as a windsurfer I actually look forward to autumn with its strong winds and the thought of good windsurfing conditions while the sea is still quite warm. But for most people, christmas is still a long way off, summer never arrived, the children are back at school already, the nights are closing in and autumn has us in its grip.

Time to batten down the hatches and prepare for some weather!

I hope you like the photo above, it was one I took at Westonbirt Aboretum and always reminds me of the onset of autumn.

The weather has been a little mad lately. Yesterday we had monsoon conditions in the morning with around 12mm of rain in an hour or so, but by the afternoon it was glorious sunshine and I even fell asleep in the hammock out in the garden! Perfect weather for the garden to grow though, although there was a bit of wind as usual which does its best to ruin any plants around here! When I say a bit of wind, it was gusting to just over 40 knots which is in fact quite a lot of wind!

Normally I’d be out on the water windsurfing but I’m still recovering from my recent chest infection etc. so I had to stay at home. I did manage to wander around the garden in the sunshine for a bit though and things do indeed seem to be growing well.

Somehow we have tomato plants all over the garden. I think they must have grown from seeds in the compost bin but they seem to be doing OK and some of them are even ripening. They are making parts of the garden look a little messy but I’m still trying to get things established so any growth is good as it provides shelter for other things. Talking of which, the Goji Berry bushes that we put in earlier in the year seem to be doing really well. They seem to cope well with the wind, we’ll just have to see how they fare with the winter.

I now have some plans for a nice big flower bed at the far end of the garden and some little seating areas.. Time to get to the garden centre and spend some money! Either that or make some seats out of flotsam and jetsam from the beach!