Category: UK/England

It seems as if we can only visit Stonehenge in bad weather.  First, when my parents and Uncle Bommer were here, it was cold and snowy the day we went.  Yesterday, when we took our friend Emily there, it was rainy and windy–although not as cold.  Here are a few pictures from Stonehenge:

Oh, and by the way…the place was way crowded.  First, we had to queue about 30 min.  Then, once we got to the car park, all of the spaces were taken up by coaches (they had about 15 car spaces for cars….all of the rest of the car spaces were taken up by coaches).  They did let me drop Cyndi, Emily, and the kids off but I had to park down the road on a side road.  Oh well.  After that, we went to Bath…I’ll write more about that this afternoon.

Tomorrow will be the Summer Solstice in the northern hemisphere.  One of the things that means everywhere North of the equator is longer days.  But here in England, the days are longer than one might think.  For example, as I’m writing this, the time is 10:10pm and the sky is still light.  Below is a picture I took last week with my camera phone at 10:10pm.

Look at that!  Incredible the amount of light on the horizon.  Tomorrow it will be even more so.

Oh, in addition to staying light longer, the sun also rises earlier.  I’d have to look it up, but we sunrise has to be about 5am this time of year.  Now, one disadvantage is it gets dark sooner in the winter.  For example, it is full dark (no light visible in the sky) by 4pm in the winter time and it doesn’t get light until about 8am.  Oh, in case you are wondering, we live at 51 degrees north.  That is 10 degrees shy of the 61 for Anchorage, Alaska but 13 higher than Washington DC and 4 higher than Seattle’s 47.

After Cyndi’s trip to the Phantom of the Opera, I took her to dinner.  She wanted to go somewhere different and local.  I suggested this BBQ place I had eaten at before.  She was up for it so we started walking.  After some confusion where it was (and some wandering), we found it.  Here it is:  Bodean’s BBQ in SOHO (on Google +)

I’ve been places where water restrictions were put in place in the US.  I’ve lived places with limited fresh water.  I understand that a 10 inch deficit of rain can’t get made up for in a single 10 inch deluge.  But this is the wettest drought I have ever been in.

A hosepipe ban went into effect back in March. You can find another article on the 2012 drought here.  We had 2 really dry hot weeks around then, but it has rained a good 75% of the days since those two weeks.  Here is a picture of some street flooding:

Spring has Sprung….finally.  Back in March, the weather got really nice for about 2 weeks but then it turned cold and rainy.  But yesterday, it started to warm up.  I think that today it will continue.

We are under a hosepipe ban so a housing development decided to shut off the “creek” I walk by on the way to work.  Thankfully we don’t have mosquitoes but it is starting to look skuzzy.

The largest warship in the British Navy–HMS Ocean–recently sailed up the Thames River and made anchor to conduct some drills related to security for the Olympics.  This past Saturday, Cyndi, the kids, and I went to London to see it (specifically).  We got lost and went out of our way a bit (we didn’t know where it was for sure) but eventually found it.  Here are some pictures:

…we aren’t involved in this hostage situation in London.

Image from cszar via flickr

Tomorrow we’ll know if there will really be a petrol lorry strike or not.  Last time, we only heard they voted for a strike but didn’t set a date.  From the Telegraph:

Officials from the tanker drivers’ union Unite turned down the deal which was thrashed out during six days of talks between the union and representatives of six fuel distribution companies.

and

The union will have to name strike dates, or other forms of industrial action, by Friday afternoon unless employers agree to extend the deadline.

What will happen this time? More panic buying?  More people taking reasonable steps to provide for their own good? More queues for 999 services?

Image from daquella manera via flickr

We are currently under a hosepipe ban because of a drought condition in southeast England.  This morning, I read this article saying there has been an increase in boreholes (wells).

Now, is this a solution? Not really because, eventually, the wells will dry up too.  It also takes water away from everyone else.  However, instead of doing something simple, I can see the government here adopting a solution like Colorado where private landowners don’t own the rain that falls on their property (there’s lots of historic reasons for this).

[Update 2012-06-13 12:14:16] This has turned into the wettest drought I have ever seen.

Image from yogentra174 via flickr