Weird lights in the sky

A big thanks to Rich R up in the Lake District for sending us some brilliant pictures of last night’s aurora. Crazy stuff indeed!

 

 

And below is our favourite video of ham radio propagation when an aurora is taking place, with some wonderful voice sounds. Captain Scarlett are you working the weekend supermarket security shift tonight as the Mysterons are back and we need you. Cheers Rich for the pictures, brilliant stuff!

No complaints about the cold today

Cheers to Rich R in the Lake District for sending us a photo of what the view was the like from his front doorstep on Saturday. Now that looks cold! And to accompany the picture, Rich said “The mountains are still covered this morning but not ground level. A lot of people were posting pics of the northern lights last night.” That is crazy stuff. Keep warm Rich and keep on sending us the pictures.

On a cold and frosty morning

Another big thanks goes out to Rich R in the Lake District for sending us a pic of what the view was like from his front window earlier today. This picture was taken just after the morning snow stopped and he also told us minus 5 is on the cards for tonight. Brrrr, that’s all you need. Keep warm Rich!

By all accounts Forest Hill is supposedly having a couple of cold nights this week so BBC Weather reckons. Anyway here’s an apt named tune from Hoodish Recordings in Tokyo from an artist called MaL (PART2STYLE) and it’s called Powder Snow Dub and a nice tune it is!

A view from the front door (January edition)

A big cheers goes out to Rich R in the Lake District for sending us a few pictures from his front door this week. And what a view! As Rich told us: “Here’s the view out front this lunchtime. A bit of context here, the distance from one end of the photo to the other is 6 miles. Imagine how many buildings London has in that space!” He ain’t wrong there. We worked out that Forest Hill to Elephant and Castle is 5 miles or so, so that is some width!

Pic below “This is looking south from the doorstep towards Keswick , 2 miles away and in the foreground.” Now there’s a great view from the front door. Cheers for sending the pics in Rich!

Evening all

Cheers to Rich R in the Lake District for sending us his pic of the Halo moon (“and is that Jupiter to the right?” said in the best Patrck Moore voice) taken at 10.30pm on Saturday night. We were well tucked up in bed at that time knackered after that little bit of work in the garden, the lightweights that we are. Cheers for that Rich, it’s a great photo!

And talking of Patrick Moore here’s possibly one of the best youtube clips ever, apologies as we do roll this out a few times a year as it love it so much. The handwriting part is excellent. “Keep watching the skies” as they say.

A view from the front door

Big thanks to Rich R in the Lake District for sending us a photo of Skiddaw (3054 feet) The snow has come a couple of weeks later than usual but it is there now (remember the last post from Rich here). Rich was saying it is quite a labourious walk of 3 hours to get to the peak with not many twists and turns but from the top you can see as far as Scotland across the Solway, The Isle of Man to the South and Northern Ireland to the west. Now that is one view!

And it looks like from the doorstep they get good night skies too. The top night picture has a tinge of the northern lights. Cheers for those Rich.

Outside view

Big thanks to Rich R in the Lake District for sending us these great pictures. The snow cap peak is Blencathra or as the Victorian Tourists named it, Saddleback. What is strange is that the pic was taken (from his front doorstep) 3 years ago to the very day.

Now fast forward 3 years and look at the weather up there today (pic below), you wouldn’t think it was November. This morning in Forest Hill we picked some ripe cherry tomatoes off a plant in the back. How mad is that? Cheers for the pics Rich!

Wild plants connect us all

Last week we received some pictures of local vegetation from our good friend Wlad (US7IGN) in Kyiv, Ukraine spotted while on his daily walk. We sadly haven’t got much knowledge when it comes to foraging but would love to know more about wild plantlife.

As for the picture Wlad sent above, these here are the same flower aren’t they? Those were seen a long while ago in the Welsh countryside (here). As far as we know from a comment posted at the time from our friend Jan, they are Yellow Toadflax. More on the plant here. Thanks for these pics Wlad as they are interesting viewing.

We’ve also just heard from Rich R in the Lake District saying he left the garden for a week and those Fox and Cubs have taken over and are a foot tall. Crazy stuff! Wild plants eh?

A view from one’s garden

Cheers to Rich R for sending a photo his daughter took from the middle of Bassenthwaite Lake. It’s looking towards Skiddaw a mountain (and once volcano) in the Lake District that is 931m/3054 feet high. As Rich tells us “It’s the mountain that dominates the view in our back garden” Wow that is some mountain and if you see that from your back garden that is something else! Excellent Rich and ta to your daughter for taking the photo.