Birthday Weather

Did you know that you can see UK weather charts / reports for the day you were born?
The Met Office has a freely accessible Digital Library and Archive.
It is possible to view or download a pdf file for the Month in which you were born.
(or any period you may wish to investigate)
It will include full records for each individual day in that month.
These can be large files. Mine is 66.9MB
There is information from 1860 onwards.

Don't expect  the sort of simplified charts seen on TV forecasts.
These are full reports / logs of temperatures, sunshine, rainfall, wind, charts, etc..
Presentation of the information varies depending on the methods used at the time.

This is a chart for the day I was born;



As I was a bonny, bouncing war time baby I was not surprised to notice some of the pages on my charts were marked SECRET at the time. No sense in letting the enemy know when the weather would be ideal for a bombing raid! All are available to be seen now.

The Met Office Digital Library and Archive can be found HERE.
You can start refining your search HERE.

Information accessed contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Monday Montage

Last week's WidsMob Montage modified photo was



which was correctly identified as



a drummer boy by Adrian, Ragged Robin, Wilma and The Weaver of Grass.

I took the photo many years ago when there was a re-enactment in the grounds of Lincoln Castle of one of the battles from the Napoleonic Wars. I discovered the event entirely by accident. While shopping in Lincoln one Saturday I heard the sound of gun fire. Unlike today it was something to investigate. Found the source was in the castle, paid my entrance fee and had a very happy afternoon watching the various activities. If I heard gun fire today I would be heading swiftly in the opposite direction.

I wonder what this week's montage was a photo of



If you would like to have a guess please leave it in the comments.
They will be revealed, along with the original photo, nexr Monday.

Jack Pays a Visit

Crawled out of bed half an hour later than usual. Ablutions over I checked the outside temperature. 7.4C. Not too bad. Sky 90% clear. Sun rising. What a surprise as I felt the grass crunch underfoot as I checked the back garden for doggy deposits before we went walkabout.

Jack Frost had been a-visiting.





Frost patterns on the top of a plastic garden store:





On our perambulation through the village it was obvious the roads had been salted.
After breakfast I had a look at my weather recordings for this morning:



There had been a steady overnight drop in air temperature to 4.3C with no breeze.

Hello Vanessa

In spite of the temperature being 12.4C this Vanessa atlanta (Red Admiral butterfly) fluttered into view to rest and take advantage of the first period of Sunshine for several days.

New Additions

As posted last January I have been using this propagator in the conservatory.



Unfortunately it has been a disaster for growing my miniature orchids in.
It worked well in the cold weather with its heater keeping plants snug and warm.
Came Summer and even with plenty of ventilation and shading it got too hot for them.
I lost a few and others are suffering badly. Some may recover with TLC.

What did thrive were my Lithops (living stones)
Some so well they are due for moving to larger pots.
I have decided to add more succulents and one spineless cactus.

My latest arrivals (all in 3 inch pots)

Sedum rubrotinctum

Lithops (living stone)

Fenestra rhopalophylia (baby toes)

Cotyledon undulate

Adromischus cooperi

Astrophytum myriostigma

Wordless Wednesday

Faucaria

Seeing Red ....

.... with a bit of orange thrown in.

Starting the day


Whilst planting some Ice Cream Tulip bulbs
a 7 spot ladybird


In the garden

Chinese Lantern plant


Weeping Cotoneaster


Out and about

Berberis


Acer


Sweet William


Remembrance


Objects


To end the day