Monkey's Blog - with a little help from Alice

Snow, Spring? Snow and ? - plus a surprise.
[UPDATED TUESDAY 20th MARCH]

Most of this post is about the recent Beast from the East and how it has been affecting British weather, ourselves in particular. But fear not, there's a suprise to reward your patience at the end.

Ba had assumed this recently oft referred to creature was some kind of giant polar bear, falling upon us with ravenous intent to eat up as many of the unsuspecting citizens as possible. Perhaps she thought it would be like the fighting ones in Philip Pullman's wonderful trilogy His Dark Materials. Alice loved these books, by the way, and has almost finished the exciting first installment of the sequel, The Book of Dust.

In fact the Beast from the East is a much more mundane expression for a cold air system, the rather boring explanation for which is found on this Met Office site.

This diagram is supposed to help you understand what it's all about. There's now a slightly different, maybe better (?) explantion by BBC News.

Still none the wiser? Never mind, our photos will give you a proper taste, instead, without any academic links. And if windowboxes and weather aren't your thing, then just whizz down to the surprise at the end of this blog post - though you'll miss a few G-o-T references. . .

February 28th. Why have we got hat or scarf on, and what is it that Ba can't quite see?

When we perched on something else (it's actually an incense stick burner box) the first thing we saw was two sets of big eyes staring back! [Click to see for yourselves.]

OK, enough being silly. It was snowing heavily that day, and Ba got us to put on our extra winter wear and take a look at how the bulbs were doing in the window box. I said we should just look and not venture outside, or let the cold air in! But the photo didn't come out very well as the white snow was so bright.

You can see better in this one on the left, looking out of a different window, definitely kept closed.

March 1st. After even more snow overnight, the green shoots from our bulbs are buried even deeper. Compare these two photos carefully, and you'll see by just how much.

Ba was worried they wouldn't survive.

Our near neighbour, Targ, ventured outside very cautiously. It all looked and felt rather different. OK, he'll risk the crossing. [Photo by SJ.]

He's called Targ, short for Targaryen, as his owner is a great Game of Thrones fan, and her favourite character is Daenerys. Alice prefers Tyrion, as he's so smart and witty, and Peter Dinklage is the outstanding actor in the role.

March 2nd. We gave Alice our moral support when she went to scrape the snow and ice off the step outside the front door, so the trip across the road to the communal rubbish bin could be undertaken without too much danger of slipping or falling.

That isn't a proper shovel - it's one left over from the very long ago days of a coal fire. You never know when something in the depths of a cupboard might come in useful, do you? That's her excuse for not clearing them out, anyway, and she's just been proved right.

March 3rd. Why are we having our photo taken looking out of the window yet again today?

Isn't everything the same?

Look more closely: there's a bud showing in the top left corner.

I think it's a miniature daffodil, or a crocus, but we'll just have hope it survives the cold and wait to see.

March 10th. A bit of a time gap here: it snowed on and off, but today there was rain and even some hail. The buds are doing well, however, as you can see.

Then . . .
March 11th. This afternoon it was actually sunny and warmer, so we wandered along the canal and enjoyed the daffodils which are coming out right now! It's Spring at last, surely!!

You can just make out the footpath and the canal itself behind these splendid blooms. We simply had to lie down and revel in the glory of it all.

March 18th. Then today, after that lovely sunny spell last week, there were great flurries of snow - again!

When we first looked out, a few of the shoots had been flattened.

Some of it had melted by the time we'd got ready for the photo session, and (luckily) the flattened shoots had perked up again. Phew.

We'll finish this section on Snow, Spring (was it?) and Snow again, with a composite image where you can compare three versions, from March 3rd (far right) to March 10th (centre) and the 18th (on the left). The gallant plants have weathered several changes!
Now for the Surprise!

On March 14th we learned of the death of the amazing and brilliant physicist, Stephen Hawking. You can find obituaries and articles in many places, such as the BBC News channel, and the scientific journal Nature.

He was famous for his own huge theories about Life, the Universe and Everything.  But rather than agree that the answer was 42, he discussed his views with other famous thinkers, such as Carl Sagan and Arthur C Clarke.

Despite all this, however, our favourite memory of the man is this sketch he made with Little Britian for Red Nose Day in 2015. He may have been a scientific genius, but he also had a wonderful sense of humour!

The skit, which also makes some telling points about disability prejudice, is available to watch in full on this YouTube link, while some of the others are only partial.