8th December

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

1857
"This would have been a bright sunny day but for the interference of the fog; and before I had been out long, I actually saw the sun looking red and rayless, much like the millionth magnification of a new half-penny." Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1857 (London)

1872
"...at about half past four began the Great Storm of 1872. Suddenly the wind rose up and began to roar at the Tower window and shake the panes and lash the glass with torrents of rain. It grew very dark and we struggled home in torrents of rain and tempests of wind so fearful that we could hardly force our way across the Common to the Rectory. All the evening the roaring S.W. wind raged more and more furious. It seemed as if the windows on the west side of the house must be blown in. The glass cracked and strained and bent... I went out to see where the cows were, fearing that the large elms in the Avenue might fall and crush them. The trees were writhing, swaying, rocking, lashing their arms wildly and straining terribly in the tempest but I could not see that any were gone yet. The twin firs in the orchard seemed the worst off, they gave the wind such a power and purchase, with their heavy green boughs, and their tops were swaying fearfully and bending nearly double under the horrendous strain... Now and then the moon looked out for a moment wild and terrified through a savage rent in the storm.

"The cows were safe in the cowyard and the door shut, though how I cannot tell. They must have gone there for shelter and it seemed as if the Lord had shut them in... Everything was drowned in the roar and thunder of the storm. The wind howled down the chimney, the room was full of smoke and every now and then the fire flaught out into the room in tongues of flame beaten down with a smother of sparks and smoke." Francis Kilvert, 1872 (Wiltshire)

2009

Pulled the curtains this morning to find the moon staring mistily in at me in the gloom of pre-dawn - seven o'clock in the morning, this (7.13 says my clever camera!) The clouds shifted though, and the sun rose and the world tinged pink and fine, so that I was cross when there was dreadful traffic blocking the road, making me too late to walk to work after all - waah! Fine, I think, all day, but now all is dark-clouded and there is rain on my window...
Byslantedlight, 2009 (Cambs.)

2010

I didn't see any of the day today - dark when I left home, and dark when I got back, and the middle was blotted out by builder's scaffolding. I think it was blue-skyed, though I don't think there was frost today. It feels cold tonight - the moon was a gorgeously thin sliver of pale gold as I drove back to warmth, though... Byslantedlight, 2010 (Cambs.)