I have a picture on my wall which is a rather large old fashioned tea cup and inside it is painted the raging seas, a distant lighthouse and a floundering sailship.. It is called "Storm in a Tea Cup" and as soon as I saw it in one of those quaint artist shops in St Ives I knew that it had to hang upon my wall.
But as I braved the cold and the wind this morning, I decided that a stroll along the beachhead at Burry Port harbour would make a change for me and a somewhere different for the dogs. They didn't seem to mind the cold wind which cut through my lightweight fleece and tried to whip my Crimson Moon cap from my head, but charged into the sea and cavorted in the waves. The wind was strong and the distant waves hitting the ridge swept spray in to the air and dampened the face, I am convinced that had I sported a beard there would have been Scott of the Antarctic icicles.
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| "Come on in - the water is lovely" |
But the reason for the mention of the tea-cup was the sky as I wondered down the beach. The Lighthouse at Burry Port loomed over the beach and the clouds were striking, ominous and full of rain. The sun bright behind. Other intrepid dog walkers were on the beach, head down, scarves wrapped around faces, gazing mainly at the sand to keep the cold wind from scoring the skin, but I had to look to the horizon and in the space of only a few minutes the skies changed colours several times, from a dark shadow to a russet hue.
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| Burry Port - by the harbour |
There was no storm. The skies just played at Kaleidoscope for a while and it was later when I got home that I was able to warm up a little with a cup of tea. But the cobwebs were blown well away and the dogs managed to shake water all over the car - but that is what dogs do.....
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| Red Sky in the middle of the day ... err! |
I know the old wives tales of red sky at night and red sky in the morning - but in the middle of the day ??
Full set of photos are on FLICKR
Why is it the 'old wives' who get saddled with such sayings? May it it not have been one of the self-same old daft shepherds (or sailors - depending on the version you learned) who uttered that non-sense about what lay ahead for them?
ReplyDeleteI say 'non-sense', because I have seen FAR too many red skies in mornings that gave way to calm and beautiful days. If only I were able to post those photos here - but they would not give PROOF to my contention. Go ahead, you old wives: make a liar of me!
I can but pose a simple solution to your query regarding the mid-day redness in the skies: 'Rose-colored glasses!' - and not necessarily glasses from the occulist, my friend. A Bordeaux or a Pinot Noir, tilted at the right angle, can brighten the dullest of days.