Winter

[bellinghman]

It's definitely winter out there. The frost we had last night was spectacular - better than a snowfall - and it's still comfortably sub-zero. I'm just glad I'm not out driving in it, since part of the reason is that it's very slightly foggy too.

Comments

[furrfu.livejournal.com]

Rather thick fog between my corner of fenland and Cambridge, combined with -5°C temperatures this morning. Amazing how many people seem to think that you don't need lights on when driving in fog "if it's daylight". Or at least, I assume they had a reason for being so useless...

[ewx.livejournal.com]

There was someone driving on Carlton way in the fog, at night, without lights, last night. We shouted 'lights' but I don't think they heard...

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Probably deafened by the sound of breaking glass when they hit the lamppost.

The shame is, all too many Darwin Award nominees seem intent on sharing the glory.

[timill]

It's perfectly reasonable out. Though I did have to find a can of de-icer spray for the car windows, since scraping was pretty ineffective. Let's hear it for heated windscreens!

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

And heated wing mirrors.

Though it is a bit odd standing nearby and watching two faint vapour trails rising from the wing mirrors, when the rest of the car is still solid frost.

[sparrowsion]

I broke my scraper clearing the windscreen this morning….

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Ah, I ran the engine for a few minutes first. Yes, that's not wonderfully fuel efficient (the manual advises starting the engine and moving off immediately when possible), but I'm not hugely happy about the content of some de-icers, and I'm trying to keep the nastier chemicals off the paintwork.

I'm going to give it its first clean one of these days. Silver certainly shows up the winter muck.

[sparrowsion]

I don't like using de-icers either, which is why I was scraping hard enough to break the scraper. And it's entirely possible, with my car, that if try and leave it running for a few minutes, it will have other ideas (in the name of fuel efficiency). Although first thing, it does seem happy to run the engine even while sat stationary (getting up to operating temperature?)

[mkillingworth.livejournal.com]

Jealous! Some of us had to drive on the slippery fen roads in fog so thick you could cut it with a knife this morning. It's almost noon and I still have my jacket on in the office. I don't even want to think about the 50 yard walk across the car park to the outbuilding which is our loo.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

An outside loo?

How odd!

And the fog is getting thicker down here the other end of the county. I can no longer see either Cambridgeshire or the Eastern Hemisphere at all from here.

[mkillingworth.livejournal.com]

I'm kind of taking it on faith that the loo is still there. I can't see any traffic on the A10, which I can usually see quite clearly from my office window. I think it's getting worse up here, too.

[timill]

Beautiful day down here in London...

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

I hope it'll be a nice night, too. For your sake …

I would not like to drive very far through what I can see from here.

[timill]

Well, I only have 75 miles to do, and it's pub night in the village, so I have to do it...

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Well, be careful if you're passing Royston (though I'm under the impression you don't come off the A1M at Baldacca).

[timill]

Since they've sorted the roundabout at A1M J9, I usually come up the A505 and thence towards Caxton, Papworth Everard and St Ives...

Sounds like a better idea than Dunton and Eyeworth, at least...

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Ah, so you're turning left a couple of hundred metres behind my back.

You might be OK if you're heading past before dusk. It seems to have lifted a bit in the last hour or two.

[timill]

In fact, it was fine, faster than usual, and less foggy than this morning.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Well, it's come back again. A shame, it was actually quite nice and clear until about 13:30, and then this fog just descended.

[hesadevil.livejournal.com]

It was spectacular, wasn't it? I sent MWNN out to photograph the hoar frost on the spiders' webs. Not sure they came out, he thinks the batteries are dead.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

It's mostly melted off over here now - just turned into that cold, damp fog.

Yeuch!

[mkillingworth.livejournal.com]

The spider webs were incredible, weren't they? I noticed loads that I hadn't even realised were there before.

[hesadevil.livejournal.com]

A couple of the photos came out ok. This one's on one of those big wheelie bins, so you can see clearly how big the web is - webfrost

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Which shows just how strong spider silk is - without that ice all over it, you can't see it, yet that invisible core is holding up quite a weight.

[hesadevil.livejournal.com]

Kevlar?

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Not quite the same stuff, but pretty close. Kevlar may be said to be to spider silk what nylon is to normal silk - inspired by it, but not quite it.