Look! Blue sky! :)

From some of my previous blips you'd think Belfast is in a permanent state of misery and greyness, which just isn't true. Today is a cracking day; there's blue in the sky and you can actually make out individual clouds, a really nice change from the solid blanket of gloom we've had over the past few weeks.

This is a statue of the famous scientist William Thompson, also known as Lord Kelvin, which I walk past every morning on my way through Botanic Gardens. Kelvin was born in Belfast but is most famous around Glasgow, where he spent most of his life. His notable achievements include devising a temperature scale, now known as the Kelvin scale, which starts at absolute zero (-273°C). As my PhD is in the field of ultracold atoms, where researchers can achieve temperatures around a billionth of a Kelvin above zero, this is one scientist who is close to my heart.

I've tried to photograph him many times, but he's difficult because he's always back-lit early in the day when I'm passing by, and shaded by the trees. I thought that, with the great light this morning, today's picture was about as good as I'm going to get :)