Pass the mashed flipper

It’s raining again. Roads are in spate, rivers have explored far from their beds. Late summer in Scotland, though not a typical Scottish summer. This, so we are told, is the wettest since records began, whenever that was.

Farmers are trundling around the highways and byways with tractors, trailers, and large pieces of machinery that look like instruments of mass torture with their spikes and blades. Hay bales piled high on transporters spume straw debris in their wake, while roads are almost as muddy as the fields being worked in.

In the garden, plants bravely retaining their blooms have been battered by the wet, but still look cheerful from the windows of the house. Leaves are turning with one or two glimpses of spectacular reds from the car as we travel around.

‘The hob is full of water,’ said husband one morning. I assumed water had been spilt and not mopped up. But, no. I discovered as I made the meal in the evening that rain was finding its way into the downward turned pipe for the hob extractor hood and pouring onto the cooking area. Husband didn’t believe it was possible. But that’s what was happening. Rain that was not only heavy but could curve its way inside. Weird.

Stormy sea and rocks

While we suffer branches whirling like dervishes, those who stay by the coast have a different experience of storms. There the sea is the focus, awesome in its strength and destructive capability, yet still with a peculiar beauty. And while the gulls battle wind and spray fish and seals have to find sanctuaries beneath the churning waves of their world.

The spray fills the air

The sea finds it way everywhere

Rough and calm

The sea takes and it brings…shells, rubbish and seaweed.

A sheen of water on the sand reflects waves and a suddenly blue sky.

 

 

 

 

Advertisement