Don't know why . . . there's no sun up in the sky . . .

. . . stormy weather. Well, it's been quite exciting to watch, with our perfect view from our windows of the sea in all its wildness. BIG waves and squalls of hail and rain and nearly-snow hurling themselves towards us across the water. Strong, gusty winds chucking stuff around. Notice the eucalyptus tree in the photo - it's bending seriously to the right - it normally stands up fairly vertically. The sun, however did appear from time to time, as there were nice big breaks in the clouds, as you can see here. You'd hardly believe it was such a wild day, really.

But this is normal weather around here. The trees down the lane are all bent in that direction permanently, because of the prevailing winds.

You have to drive more slowly than usual, especially when you're on roads with overhanging trees, as there's no way of telling if there's going to be a big huge tree limb lying across the road in front of you as you go round a bend. But hey, it's all fun.

Apparently the M6 was closed for a while, and a car ferry on its way across the Irish Sea had to be evacuated by helicopter. Can you imagine being out in the Irish Sea in a car ferry in this weather? I think I'd have stayed ashore and waited for the wind to die down if it'd been me.

Stormy weather

Through the night the wind howled, the thunder crashed and the rain battered the rooftops. If you opened a window you could hear the roar of the waves crashing on the shore, just a mile away. I just couldn't wait to get down there with my camera!

There's not a lot else you can do in weather like this, and if you live near the sea it would be a crime to pass up such a fine opportunity.

Took over 200 photos in the end. Some of the better ones can be seen here. The sea is usually quite calm around here, so it was quite exciting to see real big breakers, crashing over the promenade or the pier. Anglers, hardy souls, were out in force in their gaily coloured jackets. I saw a swan, apparently surfing for pleasure, great flocks of seagulls (mostly the smaller gulls rather than the evil herring gulls) and oystercatchers.

Eventually the sun came out, making the big waves blue, but still just as loud and stormy. But the colour and quality of light that comes after a storm is quite beautiful, and even Maryport looked lovely for a little while.


It's a shame that Flickr was having an off day. Suddenly everyone was finding that only some of the photos they were uploading could be accessed, and chaos reigned around the globe for a while until they fixed it and we heaved a collective sigh of relief.