Around 11.15am Friday 5th July 2024 - unusual temperature inversions. Larger image (Above - from the high point above O Acebo - view towards Grandas de Salime & the Navia valley) Temperature inversions always put a smile on my face - I'm grateful they have chosen to put on a show; they always bring to mind Border Collie dogs - there is of course no logic to this. Although, having said that, I can draw a tenuous parallel by stating that, for example, 'temperature inversions visibly make the world a better place' and 'Border Collie dogs visibly make the world a better place', now, some contentious people might suggest that 'Border Collies do not make the world a better place as far as the sheep are concerned' however while this point may 'appear' to have a degree of validity it does not do so precisely because the sheep will end in the butcher's shop with or without the intervention of the Border Collies, and further, by dint of their chivvying of the sheep - who are innately inclined to 'static' browsing and therefore prone to a considerable variety of ailments resulting from an overly sedentary lifestyle - the sheep are 'encouraged' to engage in a form of repeated physical activity which promotes benefits to all aspects of their physical, emotional and intellectual life, accepting, of course, that it doesn't - of itself - postpone the 'day of the butcher'. What? Are you suggesting that sheep do not have an intellectual life? What 'heresy' is this? Surely even you, of all apparently 'thinking' entities, understand that these noble Ruminants are so called precisely because they RUMINATE! Recall, if you will, that in the oft-repeated empirically established Theocratic Laws of The Sheep, when the Splin of Akle authored - through the medium of thought reflected from a mirror woven of bay leaves, snow, wintergreen and mustard seeds - the entirety of all living things, it was only to Humans - so called - that the Splin of Akle gave the indissoluble gift of hubristic confusion (without remission)! What - what now? What are you cavilling about now? What do you mean you don't agree that 'temperature inversions visibly make the world a better place'? Because what? Because 'someone might be getting wet............!' Really.....? Good grief! I think I'll leave the 'dialogue' there - I've been reading Kierkegaard recently (specifically 'Fearing Knee-trembling') and am quite able to generate screeds of intricate reasoning in proposing to define the essential nature of a grain of sand using the full 'Heinz' 57 arguments, forwards, backwards, Knight's move, semiotics, semolina and wintergreen woven from a thought-mirror of finest Splinofakle! Larger image (Above - from O Carbalin looking towards the mountains of Asturias and Leon) Normally a temperature inversion has cloud down to ground level - consequently I usually set off in 'heavy mist' - on this particular morning there was thick low cloud down to around 700 metres above sea level or thereabouts. That is to say more or less 300 metres above my house. All the indications on the way up suggested 'low cloud, possibly rain in the offing' - there was enough moisture to require the use of windscreen wipers. Only when emerging into intense sunshine a little before O Carbalin did it become apparent this was not a 'possible rain' day. Even before passing behind O Carbalin it was apparent the valley was filled more completely than I've seen before. The usual route I take to and from 'town' goes over the pass of O Acebo, a little before I get to O Acebo there is a higher point, more or less the same height above sea level as Ben Nevis, which I have christened (for my own personal use) as 'The Ben Nevis Curve'. Between O Carbalin and the 'Ben Nevis' highpoint the vista towards Grandas de Salime was similarly filled nearly to the brim Immediately after the high point of 'The Ben Nevis Curve' the entire view East to South to West comes into sight. Virtually every time I have seen temperature inversions they have been isolated - typically one valley has one, most don't. Sometimes two valleys, very rarely three. When there are two or three they are generally not adjacent. Very occasionally there may be an agglomeration. This day was different - as far as I could see in every direction every valley was filled near to the brim with glowing white temperature inversions. I would like to have stopped and taken photos of this spectacularly beautiful sight, but on the way to town I didn't have time to spare - I needed to get a good parking spot outside the supermarket before it opened. On the way back I had a large quantity of frozen food, fresh fruit and vegetables with me. The humidity and air temperature up top was 'saunatic'* - by the time I'd taken the last photo the sweat from my forehead was running down my glasses, so stopping to take photos of all the other inversions was out of the question - great shame! Larger image (Above - a lower viewpoint at O Carbalin looking towards the mountains of Asturias and Leon) * Saunatic - Adjective, a mixture of temperature and humidity approximate to that found in a sauna. (If the word's not in the dictionary then I've just invented it.)