Sorry to hear of your post holiday blues Aphelion! .. I think its an epidemic!

As for your photos .. They look great! I too am in need of some sunshine. I live in the lower "rain"land (translated to lower mainland) and its been raining here for weeks now its very depressing. 200mm+ of rain last week and its still raining. Hard to go out and get any good pics with weather like this.

Maybe I will drum up some of my sunny pics too .. from the previous warm weather that has since passed by in recent months.

MNG

We don't have those issues here on the East side of the Cascades... must be horrible, all that rain.

Wow. Have a look at these. Britain in winter. I bet you wish you were here.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2087332/Snow-way-cold-snap-brings-winter-weather-UK.html

Oh Sugarcane, this makes me want to visit even more.

So this is where our cold weather went? It's raining today and washing away all the snow we had on Friday for our first snowfall of the season.

Beautiful.

I�d wish I was there, but we have our own new snow here. About three inches so far and up to a foot in the 24 hr forecast. It�s nice. Most everyone stays home so work is quiet and peaceful for those of us not afeared of driving in it. Fantastic bright yellow sunset with beautiful alpenglow going on right now.

I think I will try to find some old pictures I have of an ice storm that came through here one night about 15 years ago. Everything got coated with a quarter inch or more of clear ice. When the sun rose the next morning it was as if we were living in a crystalline world. Except for the 10 inch diameter branch that broke off a 100 ft tree in the back yard and came through the roof and speared the kitchen table it was a beautiful day.

The Eastbourne beach picture reminds me of a month I spent near Blackpool in the late 80�s working on an RAF program. It was always cold and windy but people were laying around on the beach just like in that picture anyway. I thought they were nuts.

Yup yup. Western WA is getting plowed. Not usual.

If you are referring to the winter of '96, Aph, it was a crazy one for sure.

After Christmas I drove from here to San Diego with my brother, and the traffic signs in the Gorge had foot long sideways icicles on them, with an inch or two of ice coating them, to boot.

It was a rather... interesting winter.

Sug, those pictures of the atypical "deep freeze" in Ol' Blighty are actually very similar to pictures from some of the USA's COLDER areas as late as May, or as early as September! I'm thinking of the frozen tundras of OKLAHOMA, for example! (But don't tell Uno Who!)

I definitly remember. This entire end of the county was without power for five days. The following summer is when I installed the emergency generator. We�ve needed it a dozen times since too.

We Brits think that it is normal to lie on the beach in warm clothing and take an umbrella to a barbecue. If we waited for good weather we'd never enjoy our great outdoors!

A British picnic is a triumph of stoicism and mind over matter.

I won't say a word.

But we don't typically have hard winters and deep freezes - or perhaps they do in parts of Scotland, but not in England and Wales. Those pictures don't really show a deep freeze; they show the first frost that looks like fairy dust. We do winter the way we do everything else; with understatement.

What is lovely to me about those pictures is not just the white, but the landscape still showing through. We do have beautiful countryside with all its peaks, lochs, highlands and gently rolling hills.

Y'all need to get over here and see!

Y'all need to get over here and see!

Been there, my dear friend! The only nation of your isles I have not toured is Wales! (How do you think I knew - so long ago - about Marmite and warm beer?)

I don't think you told us about this, did you?

When did you come? Where did you go? How long did you stay? What did you think of it? DId you go to Ireland? I haven't been there, and I'm told it's beautiful and wet.

I actually missed out on the worst of it, as I was hanging in sunny Southern CA, which was nice enough to be walking around wearing shorts (though, when I was 12 we were down there for a record cold winter).

There were floods all over Northern CA, Reno, NV had flooded, and the pass on the way home was closed due to mudslides. One of our local bowling alleys collapsed under the ice sheets, as well as several other businesses, and plenty of homes.

Nasty, nasty winter.

Ireland is the most beautiful land I've ever seen! (And yes, among the wettest!) Get to the west, Sugar, from Kerry (where my Mother's family came from - Kenmare) all the way up to the Connemara region of Galway! If things were to break right, bride and I would seriously consider re-locating to Clifden!


Spent ten days touring England (really, the south) a looooong time ago. Spent just over a week in Scotland in 2002.

And don't you ever sleep?

I wanna go I wanna go.

I feel like a fraud calling myself "Scotland" when I have never been. Although, my father and grandparents were born there, so I have a kinship to it. And I read Highland romance novels, does that count? HEHEHEHEHE

So....GO!

Your namesake countyside is beautiful in a different way from Ireland, Scotty. Less lush(?), but more striking because of the dramatic changes in elevation. (Ireland, after all, is really a big "bowl" with the center generally lower than the edges. Hence, its "boggy" reputation.)

Get to the north, and west, especially the islands off the western coast. (The one exception would be that Edinburgh is a GREAT town, for anyone with a smidgeon of interest in history, or during the August Tattoo, so you have to visit.)

Loch Lomond is a jewel set among the hills north of Glasgow that MUST be seen by boat. A sharp eye, guided by a knowledgeable local, can still detect part of the 18th century cattle trail used by the drovers/rustlers like the historical Rob Roy.


And monster or no monster, why would you want to never see Loch Ness?


I won't even mention the educational benefits of learning the subtle differences among the single malt whiskies, Oban being my personal favorite!

I do sleep! I slept until nearly midday yesterday (when I wrote that post), so that is why I was up so late last night.

Okay - you tortured the truth out of me. I can't take this persisitent questioning. I confess. I didn't sleep that morning. There was a hot man in my bed at THAT is why I didn't get up 'til midday.

Loch Lomond looks a lot like a Lexington Reservoir in the Santa Cruz mountains. (Just up the road a piece)

I've been to both, and it really doesn't (I think).

Loch Lomond has heathery, heathy, moorland scenery that is different in colour and texture from the desert shrubs of California. They are both gorgeous, though.