Noctilucent Clouds, Perth, 20150623

Posted on by

A classic location for long-exposure night-time photography: standing on the bridge over the M90 at Rhynd, with the road snaking away into the distance… and a clear display of noctilucent clouds above Kinnoull Hill.

From wikipedia:

Night clouds or noctilucent clouds are tenuous cloud-like phenomena that are the “ragged edge” of a much brighter and pervasive polar cloud layer called polar mesospheric clouds in the upper atmosphere, visible in a deep twilight. They are made of crystals of water ice. Noctilucent roughly means night shining in Latin. They are most commonly observed in the summer months at latitudes between 50° and 70° north and south of the equator. They can be observed only when the Sun is below the horizon.

They are the highest clouds in Earth’s atmosphere, located in the mesosphere at altitudes of around 76 to 85 kilometres (47 to 53 mi). They are normally too faint to be seen, and are visible only when illuminated by sunlight from below the horizon while the lower layers of the atmosphere are in the Earth’s shadow. Noctilucent clouds are not fully understood and are a recently discovered meteorological phenomenon; there is no record of their observation before 1885.

An Invasion of Silver Boxes

Posted on by

An Invasion of Silver Boxes

It’s a bright sunny bank-holiday weekend, which means only one thing.

Of five approaching cars at which I waved, only one young yet surprisingly dour-looking passenger waved back.

Visiting vehicles are easily identified by how caravans clog-up the roads, how cars perform 3-point turns in the mouths of T-junctions.

Avoiding eye-contact becomes the norm, as does the body-language of shying-away from Dog when passing on the pavement. Instead, out come the silver insulated food bags that bring their suburban life to us, their chilled packet contents probably bought from the perceived safety of a generic supermarket en route rather than in one of the local shops.

It speaks of an indifference to the existing social networks within the village being invaded, a separation of us versus the self-centred them.

I do not see merit in the argument that tourism is good for the local economy. It might seem to be, in a short-sighted fashion; but when all visitors see is each other and perceive landscape as pretty, its shallowness does not compare to the depth and quality of soul that comes from involving oneself in committing one’s life and work to a place.

the mind of a dog-walking automaton

Posted on by

damaged crash-barrier beside the B738 Dunskey Road

In the course of this morning’s walkies, Dog & I passed a police van with blue lights flashing, finishing-up at a small scene of wayside destruction.

I’ve been mulling over the nature of interactions with road users for a few months. Every day, we walk along roads (single-lane A- trunk and B- country, such as this), all national speed limit (max 60mph for cars). Being dutiful citizens, we tend to follow the Highway Code and stroll along the right of the road facing into oncoming traffic, as one might expect.

Being logical, I like to think in terms of a table of combinations of possible encounters:

  • A given oncoming vehicle’s speed may be such that they pass way too fast, pass at a comfortable speed, or dawdle slowly past. The distance they pass can be too close (ignores me standing in the gutter), smoothly swerved round to give an extra meter gap, or they can indicate and cross to the other side of the road. Degrees of interaction vary from car-occupants who gawp and stare, to those who appear to consciously avoid eye-contact, a few who nod, some who raise a finger above the steering wheel, some who smile, to those who wave, sometimes even enthusiastically.
  • My normal dog-walking position is along the side of the road, with Dog on the grass verge beside. According to circumstances, I can variously hop onto the verge myself, I can stop to help them pass (particularly if the road is narrow or there’s traffic coming in both directions), and/or I can nod, smile or wave (sometimes even enthusistatically if I recognize the driver).

So, what combinations constitute the happiest encounters? To be clear, I don’t find comparatively high speeds inherently worrying – otherwise I wouldn’t walk beside roads with a 60mph limit; within reason, driving briskly only minimizes the encounter time, which is fine – we’ve all got places to go. I do find it horribly rude when drivers slow down so much and stare, as though Dog & I were some kind of roadside exhibition for their tourist pleasure, especially if I’ve paused to let them pass – it’s a presumption on my time. Considering the combinations of possible action and response above, I notice that happiness is maximized, not in simple direct proportion to the magnitude of a gesture (a wave beats a nod, etc), but rather when a gesture is present but middling (pulling out a yard beats overegging it and crossing the white lines to the other side of the road – what kind of an obstacle am I?!).

Those are the minutiae of decisions. Returning to the bigger picture, to reduce encounters to a simple matter of speed and law would be to neglect a vital other dimension: in acknowledging when other parties show consideration, however small, we acknowledge their humanity. We do not exist in islands made of metal boxes, but we live in relationship to a community of all road users; therein enjoyment can be found.