Lofty ships carry low sails

We were treated to an impressive mackerel sky first thing this morning. 

Six to twelve hours after a mackerel sky – altocumulus here – one should expect a change in the weather, with falling pressure and rain or some other kind of precipitation.  Indeed, while the freezing temperatures at lunchtime, when I went out in the sunshine, have since warmed slightly, twelve hours on from this sky it was raining: briefly but heavily, only to subside not long after.  My watch's barometric chart also shows how the air pressure climbed overnight and peaked mid-morning, falling again through the day.

I worked a slightly short day today on account of being tired out from chairing and co-minuting a two hour meeting this afternoon.  I had sort of planned to cycle out in the evening to see what is happening at what I call "the three-way junction" near the ski slope.  Two roads meet the A702 in immediate proximity and tightly skewed, with poor sight lines and a tendency to create long tailbacks.  They are apparently putting in traffic lights, which will need to be timed carefully with those only recently installed at the junction where the road to the ski slope is.  I wonder how well it'll work.  In the before times, I was cycling to work before 7am purely to navigate this junction ahead of the rush hour queues.  But this evening it was too wet and cold to go out, so I ate leftovers for tea and learned more about the incredible and ill-fated (in almost every conceivable way) Antarctic Snow Cruiser.