We were warned

The advice this morning was to stay inside and not do anything too strenuous, so perhaps it was a little foolish to go outside and work in the garden? 

We didn’t think the smog had reached our part of the country when they were issuing the advice this morning, but as we sat drinking coffee and looking over the valley, it definitely looked as if something was in the air.  Maybe not Saharan sand but a thick layer of smoggy mist was hanging over us.

Mind you, there were other little airborne hazards for those prone to sneezing at this time of the year as well and though my hero didn’t consider himself to be amongst that group, this morning he admitted defeat and took refuge indoors when it got a little much.

Those heavy, smoggy skies don’t really provide the best backdrop for the lovely blossom which is opening right now.

So I was persuaded to look down, to the primroses which seem to have found every nook and cranny to bloom this year.

Whilst I was out there with my camera, I thought I’d have a little look at my favourite lichen. Here’s hoping it won’t be harmed by this horrible air we are experiencing right now. The view is that it will all be blown away tomorrow by winds coming in from the Atlantic.  Looks like we’re going to be sending it back to France, from where it came.

Bon Chance!

The Desert Breeze

I was working at Denman College near Oxford on Monday and returned to my car in the late afternoon to find it covered in dust.  I had no idea that we’d been in the middle of the Sahara Dust which has been blowing our way throughout the last couple of days.

The Met Office blog, where I found this image, explains it very well and puts the size of this “cloud” into perspective, too.  That is some cloud!

Actually, we have a little Saharan sand of our own, sitting on the cloakroom windowsill with a couple of other sandy samples from other places on our travels.

It was collected here, in the Libyan Sahara, when we were there in 2010.  I was tempted to telephone Chris Evan’s show this morning with my Top Tenuous story about the desert:  There we were, standing miles from nowhere and our guide Mohammed took off his shoes and socks and stood wriggling his toes in the sand for a while, before uttering the memorable words,

“Aaaah, Weston Super Mare!”

The Sahara is such a magical place and there is indeed a lot of sand – rather more than at Weston Super Mare, as anyone who knows that place will confirm. 

Mind you, I brought home a fair amount of the stuff in the shoes I wore that day.  They are not shoes I wear very often, but every time I do, I still get a little pile of sand on the floor when I take them off.  That means there’s probably a little Saharan sand on the floor of a few places in and around Machu Picchu as well.

The stuff gets everywhere!