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.
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.
posted by Ajax MacKindlers at 5:27 AM
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