The coldest day.

I am not sure that I can ever remember a colder day than this one has been. In Mold by mid afternoon the temperature had not risen above -8 degrees. The cold took my breath away. On the way back from the Record Office I stopped to take these photographs of a glorious sunset looking across the Moel y Parc. The other one is of the full moon before 4pm looking east. The forecast suggests that the cold weather will stay with us until after the Christmas weekend.

I'm all lost in a supermarket...

They are the words from a song by the Clash on their 'London Calling' album. Perhaps as we face Christmas shopping many of us feel lost in the supermaket - although they have now become superstores, which sounds even more scary. Before I get to the main point of this (which is not very profound, so don't expect much) I wonder if anyone else is puzzled by the word (s) found in many Tescos and Asdas - 'Instore'. Is that meant to be a joke, or just a play on words. It sounds quite frightening to me...like Bargains Instore! Anyway, although I know supermarkets (or superstores) are an essential part of our modern life, I do like to get my revenge on being made to walk along the everlasting aisles of spending temptations by spotting silly things. Both of these come from Tesco Broughton - though in most respects a fine establishment -  they are prone to blunders such as these:

What kind of bargain is this box of washing powder?

I have already put this on Facebook, but I especially like the Santa outfit being part of the Tesco Nativity range.

The 2010 freeze continues...

The temperatures hardly rose above freezing this week, but somehow or other I think we are all getting used to it. Perhaps with the recent experience of last winter we are getting better at adapting to the snow and ice. Prior to last winter we had a decade or more of mild winters when snow became a novelty. It is almost as if  these harsher winters chime with the difficult economic climate; back to the 70s. The silly tabloids cry out that this weather means global warming is nonsense; but as anyone knows weather is not the same as climate (well actually they probably don't know). In fact globally this year will be the second warmest since records began. To finish on a better note, the following two photographs show views from the Caerwys golf course.

Alpine Caerwys? I apologise for yet another view of Moel y Parc.

This oak tree still has most of it's leaves intact, reminding me that we are only a few days out of autumn.

The November snowfields of Caerwys.

This November it seems that I have become obsessed with the weather. In my defence though the weather in the past three weeks has been remarkable, as can be seen in my blogs since November 7th. Just three weeks ago we had a balmy weekend with the leaves still golden on the trees. Last weekend, as I wrote, it was the typical November mists. However this weekend artic snow has fallen on Caerwys. The ITV national news even carried their weather forecasts live from outside the church on Friday. It is the snowiest November for 17 years. My weather station measured minus 7.1 first thing today. Everyone seems to predict that this will be the coldest winter since records began (you can get 10/1 on that from the bookies). I am not predicting anything, but here are some snow photographs that I took earlier today.

Stile leading to Station Woods.

Looking east.

Icy and dangerous pavements - this is where ITV did their outside broadcast on the weather.

Season of mist and mellow fruitfulness....

I think that is how the the famous John Keats poem on Autumn begins... I blogged a week ago that I thought that was the last weekend of autumn as the gales that we forecast would strip the trees of their beautiful colours. Well that was about right, but today we had the autumnal mists. It was perfectly still around Caerwys this morning as Mary and I did the circular walk from Caerwys to Ysceifiog. It was the kind of late autumn day when I don't think any evaporation takes place. Anyway on the Station Woods path I took this photograph. If you look very carefully you can just about spot the mast on Moel y Parc.

12,000 soldiers.

In previous blogs I have referred to the time in 1909 when 12,000 soldiers arrived in Caerwys to play war games. Some of the hills around the town are still Ministry of Defence property and I have seen soldiers (including the Ghurkas) carrying out training exercises on the slopes of Moel y Parc. I doubt though that any have been on the scale of those held in 1909. In charge of the whole exercise was General Bethune; he gave an interview to the local press in which he stated his wish that the training should be a realistic as possible. The General even admitted that the normal times for dinner would not be observed as 'the soldier on active duty eats when he jolly well can'. As my previous blog showed, the soldiers did take a break for religious services as is shown by the remarkble photograph of the priests carrying out the service on the mountain side in front of thousands of soldiers. I have come across another photograph from a slightly different angle; here it is:

If anything this photograph gives an even greater appreciation of the scale of this event; it is hard to imagine how those on the periphery of the crowd could have heard the words of the church service. It is interesting to observe the woman in the foreground of the image in her typical Edwardian dress.
As mentioned above, the entire exercise was commanded by Lieut. Colonel Edward Bethune. He was a well known army leader having seen action in Afghanistan (what changes?) and South Africa. The following is a painting commissioned of the man himself:

 As can be seen, Bethune was a cavalryman. He would later play a role in the Great War, but in the age of the machine gun his speciality of fighting on horse back would soon be completely redundant.

Last weekend of autumnal colour.

Who needs to go to New England in the fall? Is it just me or has this been one of the best autumns ever. The weather has been relatively kind - certainly not very cold. Perhaps as a result the colours in this part of Wales have been magnificent. However the forecast for the next few days is for some stormy weather, so I think this might be the last weekend when the leaves are on the trees (at least until next spring anyway!). So yesterday Mary and I went out with my camera and took some photographs of the trees around Caerwys. Here are two of them:

Looking south west towards the Vale of Clwyd.

View towards Afonwen and the slopes of Moel y Parc.