Everywhere I go...

...I always take the weather with me.
 Over the past few months I seem to have developed that very British trait of obsessing about the weather. Leaving climate change aside for the moment, although I'd like someone to point out a period in Earth history when the climate wasn't changing, its our climate variation that pricks the interest. In particular the idea that the Great Weather Gods have got it in for us as a nation, and as of the last few weeks, me as an individual.
 In my line of work there are two main destinations when I've manage to escape the horrors of the open plan office, water treatment works and wastewater treatment works.
 Wastewater, what a delightful turn of phrase that is, no sewage on the beaches of Scotlandica, not a bit of it, ah now wastewater? Well that might be another matter. No one can deny that the overwhelming majority of effluent entering these plants is indeed wastewater, but you know it's never the wastewater that causes the problems. It's all that stuff floating in it that does that.
 However, I digress. On the whole I can now predict the weather based on which type of plant I'll  be working on.
  Water treatment works are generally up on top of hills. In this neck of the woods that usually means stunning mountain vistas, wild moorland specked with lochs, lochans and tumbling burns and rivers. Exactly the sort of place you want to be on a fine day.These are also windswept, shelterless places to avoid in inclement weather.
  Wastewater plants on the other hand are low lying and usually surrounded by banks, trees or scrub to hide them from view. Have you ever heard of a community being so proud of it's sewage facility that they made a village square type feature of it? No, me neither. In fact in some places the locals are most vociferous in they're arguments against these sort of facilities being placed anywhere near them. This is all very well, except that these people are just as adept at producing the raw material for these plants as everyone else in the world. In somecases more so, as it seems to spout forth from both ends.
 Again, I digress.  The sort of lanscape that sewage works are hidden are precisely the sort of still, breezeless places to avoid on a hot and humid day. There are of course other reasons to avoid these places in hot weather.
 So why Great Weather Gods have I had to spend possibly the only hot days this year in the lower end of the business? 
   
 Never mind, on holiday soon.

Horizontal Sunday

Take a bottle of medium dry white wine (three for £10 from the Dingwall Victoria Wine shop - a sure sign of quality), add two tins of Strongbow cider (eight cans for £5 in Strathpeffer Mace - purveyors of fine brews at competative prices I'm sure you'll agree), two pints of Tennants lager in the Strath Hotel bar (£2.40 each, a bit steep considering the, um, less than salubrious surroundings. Unless, that is, it costs more than you'd think to achieve an ambience of general decay. Although to be fair the bar pricing policy does seem to be rather flexible, ranging from the high experienced on this visit to a low of zilch on a previous occasion. The price never seems to be the same twice). Top all that up with a "house" measure of vodka and fresh orange (origins unknown) to send you back up the brae. Oh and let's not forget the hamburger roll (origins of all hamburgers should remain a mystery). All of this should be set to a background of pipers parading in the square (every Thursday evening as well as Saturdays these days, for those who can still appreciate the skirl without a fixed grimace).
Put these ingrediants together and serve up as the Strath Barbecue Experience.
Spend the following day horizontal on the couch.
The Viking Queen's experience varied slightly in that the wine was red, the lager in the bar was eschewed in favour of more cider and a bottle of beer at the barbi, and bed was preferred over the sofa as the medium of recovery. There were doubtless other variations that resulted in broadly the same effect.
Having lost 50% of the weekend to the BBQ after effect it was up with the larks on Monday morning and an hour spent roaming the woods with Rowan to get the systems back to operational before going to work (Viking queen still in bed at time of leaving).
The moral of this story?
Well it's obvious isn't it?
Stay away from barbecued hamburgers!

Thunder and Lightning on Loch Ness

I've been travelling along the loch for work most days for the last couple of weeks, and in that time there has been some pretty spectacular weather conditions. I think that Loch Ness may be one of the few places that is enhanced by "bad" weather. Rock faced hills, heavily wooded precipitous slopes falling down to dark leaden waters. The place cries out for dramatic skies. And by golly it gets them. Black thunderheads piling atop one another, gathering together at the waters' head before racing down the loch. A heavy curtain of rain being drawn from bank to bank, filling the skies between the hills, rushing headlong to swallow the entire glen.Very atmospheric.
I swear if there wasn't a monster in there already someone would have to make one up.
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On a different subject. I went to a stained glass workshop at the weekend. Exciting stuff. No really!
Cutting the pieces to size is a nervy business. My heart was in my mouth when it came to snapping the glass. Would it break where it was meant to? Would the whole thing shatter? Then of course there was the bloodshed. Razor sharp shards slicing fingertips. Tiny fragments embedded in skin. I haven't even mentioned the hot solder and boiling flux, nor the toxic chemical treatments.
This is no relaxing past-time for the past-its.
I think that stained glass working should be reclassed as an extreme sport.