Aerograffiti

or Saltires Everywhere!

(subtitle courtesy of the ever brilliant Folkie Booknerd)

I woke up this morning to an incredibly deep red sky over the Cow and Calf, but for once I wasn't prepared well enough and by the time I'd recovered the battery and the memory card it was too late. The best was over. It's amazing just how short-lived these technicolour displays are this time of year. Soon afterwards I was presented with this scene, a sky alive with contrails interspersed with these wonderful puffs of low cloud, scudding across at high speed driven by a strong wind. They were like scouts for the big front that soon moved through, perhaps checking out the best places to drop a lot of rain!

The contrails certainly made for a dramatic view this morning but they could be construed as a form of vandalism, defacing the look of the sky. It's actually hard here to decide which bits are the result of aircraft and which are natural - apart from the fluffy bits! When all planes were grounded recently because of that Icelandic Volcanic eruption it was actually rather wonderful to see our skies clear of graffiti. I have to admit though, all environmental considerations put aside, that I rather like the effect they create.

So this was taken from my balcony again and it serves to show the relation of Saturday's blip of Crocodile Rock (far lower right here) to the Cow and Calf. The area between, in the glow of the rising sun, is where further blips have been taken, indeed favourites of mine such as Gritstone and Pine and Nimbuses. These pine trees have been planted beside Hangingstone Quarry, a source of much of the stone which was used to build a good part of the town over a hundred years ago.

I've noticed that a few local blippers managed to catch the sky that I missed this morning, one of the old hands here in Wendy's World, and a new hand in Friday Foto. Both have great journals which are well worth checking out.

Finally, after sleeping on it, I worked out the answer to Sunday's problem, and it was obvious in the end. It's an angle of 53 degrees!