Flare

I was too busy to take photos today. Fortunately I discovered this colour when I went out to close the greenhouse. It is in the sky over the mountains, which are hidden by clouds.

There was a wild nor'westerly gale today. It wasn't too bad until I had hung out my washing. Then it really went crazy. Laundry pegs flew off like birds and my things flailed and twisted on one peg. I tore around my various clothes lines, frantically repegging. One towel escaped and skidded across the bare soil in the vegetable garden, but I managed to keep the rest clean. I worked furiously for about an hour until it was all dry. My double fitted sheet was the most difficult to control. While I was trying to peg one side the other flew off and the whole sheet billowed like a spinnaker. For a moment I felt weightless before we fetched up against a plum tree.

The rest of the day I spent struggling with my computer, which was grinding to a standstill. Last evening, with my son's help, I began identifying where I should concentrate on dumping stuff. I cleared 15Gb, but the space is disappearing rather more quickly than it should do. I ran the HD checking routine and didn't get the reassuring statement, "The HD seems to be OK." It's an old machine. I bought it second hand five or six years ago. Maybe its days are numbered. Everything is backed up to an external drive several times a day.

As I typed this there was an earthquake- two shudders that rattled the things on shelves. I always think of Christchurch because they usually get quakes much worse than we do, but my iPad GeoNet App tells me that is was a magnitude 3.9 situated rather close in our area.