Rapeseed Fields in Bloom

Kelly and Hunter were up in near London this weekend visiting some friends.  The weather was pleasant today so I took the remaining 3 kids to see up close a very iconic crop  of Britain's agricultural landscape close to our house.  The sun coupled wit some unsettled weather off in the distance gave a neat look to the sky.




Early Morning Snow

I took this video as I drove through the market town of Cowbridge on my way to work. It is very pretty when it snows like this but can be treacherous especially in the UK. One of the big reasons is that cars here are designed for fuel efficiency. They are light, low ground clearance, low profile tires with smooth treads meant for shedding rain etc. Unfortunately these attributes make cars very inefficient and challenging in snowy conditions.

Short days

Still 20 days until the winter solstice but the days are already short, but not surprising given that we are about 51.5 degrees latitude. I stopped on my way to work this morning and snapped this shot with my phone at about 7:50 am.

St Quentin's Castle

While Kelly and her mom were out running errands, I took the kids out to their first (of many) castle ruins today.  St. Quentin's Castle is very close to our house in the town of Cowbridge.  It is the remains of an early 14 century courtyard castle with a massive twin tower gate house that is still standing. Kids had a good time climbing around and exploring the ruins. 

Notice the white stains on the side?  Here's an interesting fact - While it may look like bird poop its actually not.  Its lime coming out of the walls.  In fact when we see castles in movies these days that look like standard stone walls - thats not how they would have looked - they actually would have been brilliantly white with their walls completely covered in their hey day due to the lime leaching out and down the walls.  Common houses would be stone, and because only the weathly could afford lime for the grout (holds together better), castles would have been white.