The day before yesterday

filey brigg
Originally uploaded by wherethewolvesare.

Back again, but this time my absence has been due to being a busy dad, rather than a poor driver or a bad patient – see 8th August’s post.

Anyway, after saying it seemed like a long summer in 15th July's post, it's turned into a proper British summer. The warm weather broke just a fortnight later and we've had grey skies and regular rain ever since. We went to Filey on the east coast on Tuesday and the forecast was for scattered showers. Boy, was that forecast spot on. On the journey there and back, and all day as well, we could see grey blurry columns in the distance between low cloud and the land, where showers were breaking out. At one point, we counted five seperate showers going on around us, it reminded me of the scene in the film 'The Day After Tomorrow' when the tornadoes were breaking out all over Los Angeles (but obviously not as scary – my thoughts are with you if you’re anywhere near Ernesto or one of his friends). I once stood in torrential rain for 6 hours, next to a Northumbrian reservoir, hoping to see a spotted sandpiper (I blanked) so I can do wet but I’m not really very keen on being out in the rain. Today’s show made the rain interesting at least.

The sketch is of Filey Brigg (a spit of rock jutting out into the north sea) during a brighter spell. The Brigg is a fascinating place, good for fossils, you could easily fill a wheelbarrow with fossilised corals and just up the coast is the world’s longest stretch of dinosaur footprints. Good for birds as well, a few years back I badly wanted to see a live storm petrel so I stayed up all night and climbed down the Brigg in the dark to take part in a storm petrel ringing session in order to see one. About a month later, I was on holiday on Mull, minding my own business down by the water’s edge at a far more godly hour when a storm petrel fluttered by. I guess that’s the nature of the beast – birdwatching and storm petrels.