That’s definitely some rain coming in. The players are about to get wet, as, I imagine, are most of the people sat in the main stand to the left, with its rather inadequate roof. At least those of us stood on the ‘East Paddock’ of AFC Fylde’s Mill Farm stadium had more satisfactory cover.
Five minutes into the second half, and the cue came to watch the rest of the game from inside the clubhouse at Huddersfield Amateur FC (a place that has been seen before). Perhaps the visiting team, in orange, might have wished to join us, as they were at least 8 goals down by this point and we were nowhere near the end.
A sign of divine intervention above Lake Ontario this afternoon? Well, more likely explained by the fact that over there lies Billy Bishop Airport, Toronto’s downtown terminal for domestic flights. Something to look at, either way.
More weather, but it was better today, and anyway I don’t care as once again I am leaving the country. Whether conditions will be improved where I’m going, who knows. The first part of my journey was by rail — this shot was snapped at about 90mph somewhere in the vicinity of Peterborough.
I still have one walk left to do in my Lake District project and today might have been a day to go — but no. Good weather in 2024 has been at a premium. And so, that particular milestone will have to wait another three weeks at least.
I was supposed to be flying out of St Helena today, but I, and the, roughly, 75 other people due to make this trip have been obliged to stay there for another 24 hours thanks to the fierce and gusty winds which were blowing over the island, despite it being otherwise a nice, sunny and quite warm day. Of the six flights I have now made to and from St Helena, two of them have been so delayed. Well, never mind, there are worse places to wait it out. The anemometer was spotted above the Castle in Jamestown, and seemed appropriate. The wonkiness of the background is not my error: much of St Helena actually does look so non-perpendicular.
Depending on how I count the days in transit, today could be reckoned the 50th day I have spent on St Helena across my three trips — and it was, certainly, the one with the worst weather. Jamestown, on average, gets 9-10mm of rain in the month of May, yet at least that amount fell today. It started overnight, and this morning there was already a dirty brown stream running down Main Street and debouching into the sea. It carried on, too, heavy showers every few minutes all day, really quite foul weather. And at points up in the hills, correspondents reckon there might have been some 100mm (4 inches) of rain through the day. Not normal…
I was forewarned about the fogs that affect the coast of Namibia. The Benguela current sweeps cold water up from Antarctica, and as it passes the African coast it mixes with the warm air coming off the continent. But just because I understand the climatology doesn’t mean that the actual experience of the fog hasn’t come as a surprise because they really are bloody cold; the mornings and evenings here in Swakopmund have not at all been like one might imagine an African beach holiday, more like Morecambe in November. These two swimmers must be seriously hardy.
The sun still seems uninterested in putting in an appearance, and this picture seems to epitomise the general colouring of the UK at this time. Manchester did get a bit more interesting for me later, but that still doesn’t mean it became sunny.
This family (I suspect, a boy and his grandparents) were not the only ones wondering what they were doing outside this afternoon — particularly watching Brighouse Town, who slumped to a 1-5 home defeat. For the last 60% of April 2024 I will be somewhere with better (and certainly drier) weather than here — but I’m not there yet.
Being 42 