In the past few weeks, I have been neglecting my blog. I have been traveling (a post on my Ireland trip is soon to come), doing uni work, horse riding, and playing soccer, and my blog has suffered for it, but I am going to try to update it this weekend and keep it up to date from now on.
Walking back from the library one night after it started to snow
For now, here is just a little note on bizarre Scottish weather. At the end of February, it was warming up a bit (i.e., it was not very very cold). I thought (naively) that winter was coming to an end. The sun was shining, it wasn't raining much, and the weather was positively affecting my mood. Then came March. On March 1, I went to Glasgow for a meeting. We were sitting inside the library at the University of Glasgow, and out the window all I could see were alternate sheets of snow, rain, or both, blowing horizontally in the strong wind. On March 2nd, back in Edinburgh, it was very cold and the rain and wind were back with a vengeance. The wind here is not like other wind I have experienced. For one thing, it seems to be a constant. Secondly, it is alway abnormally strong. The windiest day I have ever had in CA doesn't come close to a normal windy day here.
Some more snow
A slightly snowy parking lot on the way to where I was horse riding
The cold weather culminated at soccer practice last night. We train from 5-6:30, so it got dark as we were training. In the morning yesterday, it was sunny and looked like it could potentially be a relatively nice day. Come 3-4 pm, the clouds came in. By the time we had started training, the wind was literally howling through the trees and driving the rain/sleet/hail/snow full on into our faces. The conditions were truly abominable. After just a few minutes, we were soaked. I was wearing a wind breaker, which was supposedly waterproof, a sweatshirt, a tshirt, and a long long sleeve shirt, and every layer was wet by the time I got back home.
Then, flash to this morning. I woke to bright, cloudless, blue skies and sun streaming through my window. It looks like it is still cold and windy, but without any of the ominous grey clouds warning of impending snow, rain, or both. Mind you, by this afternoon it could dark, grey, and wet again.
Riding. This little horse is an Icelandic, a breed which I have never ridden before. She is really fun and has an extra gait - a tolt - between a walk and trot. In this photo it looks sunny, but just about 30 minutes later the skies were dark gray and the wind was pounding sleet into my face. I am wearing leggings, jeans, a tshirt, long sleeve shirt, sweater, sweatshirt, jacket, and the reflective outer layer, and was still a little cold when the wind hit. You can kind of see the wind in the photo dragging my hair and the horse's mane and forelock to one side.