Headlamp bow

Most of us can revel in the beauty of a rainbow. Fewer get to see the whole 360 degree arc. Still fewer get to see the illusive moon bow. How about the headlamp bow? I couldn't even find a Google hit for this one! But then not many people run (barefoot) along country roads in the dark at 6 a.m. whilst it is raining. In these conditions, when a vehicle approaches from behind, the full 360 degree arc of a headlamp bow is clearly visible as I witnessed this morning. The bow appears white or "colourless" because the angle subtended at one's eye by the headlamps is more than or comparable to the rainbow's couple of degrees angle of dispersion. There was even the suggestion of the second bow around the first.

A similar effect that I have experienced on early misty mornings is the glory phenomenon, again caused by headlamps. The pleasure of seeing these effects makes me wonder why more people do not run in the early morning? But I am glad that they do not. It is bad enough having to share my mornings with the horrendous and wasteful light pollution from unnecessary house lights, bright enough to destroy my night vision unless I keep my eyes closed whilst passing.  And it is never truly dark here, it is never necessary to use my flashlight apart from warding off marauding vehicles. And, yes, I do also wear a hi-vis jacket when on the road.

BTW - these pictures are not my own!

Irish Weather Forecasting

For an honest mortal to be a weather forecaster in the UK or Ireland must be a depressing task. If they were to forecast the very same thing every day of the year (like, "changeable") they might be no worse than trying to predict. But they have got around some of the bother by, instead of simply telling us it will rain tomorrow, stating a percentage likelihood of precipitation. So yesterday I think the percentage hovered around 10%. Any percentage other than 0% or 100% is of course bound to be correct, and even at 100% it only has to precipitate one drop to satisfy. On my long run yesterday the 10% became, for where I was, absolute certainty for about half an hour, as indeed it did two weeks previously and for longer that time. Maybe there's something about me and barefoot running. I also seem to attract vehicles that converge from both directions and want to pass just where I am, forcing me onto the verge: anyone would think roads were made for cars.

The national forecaster Met Éireann resolves its forecasts only by province (there are four) but web sites such as Accuweather (which I no longer frequent because it keeps forgetting my preferences and defaulting to the quaint and less logical American Fahrenheit and 12-hour clock systems) and Weather Underground claim to refine their forecasts more locally e.g. Valleymount in my case. But whether (or weather) such distinction is significant I know not.

Thus we have the weather system at large, some mighty computer someplace that does the predictions and various services that present this information often very verbosely to the man in the street. Who has the task of interpreting this data - like, taking a large brush and smoothing it all out to extract a summary like: "it just might be a bit wetter and warmer tomorrow", or "there's a chance of frost tonight". Or possibly not. Which generally a quick look at the clouds and thermometer would have told him.

St Kevin's Way barefoot

St Kevin's Way is a way-marked trail that runs from close to where we live to what used to be a Christian settlement in Glendalough. They claim the trail follows the path that St Kevin and his cronies travelled - perhaps some of the pilgrims were unshod. At our end the trail bifurcates one head being Hollywood and the other Valleymount. My running track took me through Valleymount and along the upper St Kevin's Way to Ballinagee bridge (where we have sometimes baptised people) and then back along the lower trail but not all the way to Hollywood.  Even so it was 15.6 miles, avg speed moving 5.5 mph.

My track, barefoot of course

Looking back to our lake

You have to pay to dispose of rubbish in this country: this is cheaper 

In full view too, the location is behind Knockalt

The downhill looking forward to Wicklow Gap

From here you can access the mountains and Art's Cross

That's the path I have just run along

Looking down to Kings River, about here it started raining

The storm passed into the distance where it dumped hail back at home

Climping camp

Climping is a village on the south coast of England near Littlehampton. It must have been before I went to college so maybe I was about 17 that I volunteered to be a junior leader in a Christian children's camp there. The camp was held every year and was run by an evangelist from, I think, the brethren movement. We had to call him "Commy" and his side kick "Adjy". I have a few memories so I checked out on-line maps to see if I could recognise the site.

Climping

I am pretty sure it was held in that small triangular field I have highlighted. The round, boy-scout type tents were in a line down the left hand side. The tent I was assigned to was towards the bottom.
There is a farm building at top right and this is where meals were served and meetings held. I think the camp was boys only but the cook was an older woman, maybe recruited from a local church.

Each tent was home to maybe eight boys including a "leader" and "junior leader". Soon after the camp started Commy took me aside and told me my leader had been sent home for some indiscretion so I was now in charge of my tent-full. I could only guess what he had done wrong. Promoted meant making sure none of my minions got lost, comforting the home-sick, leading prayers at bedtime. One of my lot had this thing of having to count all his toes before going to sleep, I suppose to make sure they were all there. This was a ritual which he carried out in full view of all of us which caused some amusement.

We each were responsible for our own plate and cutlery and had a cubby hole to keep them in. Until caught, one boy avoided unnecessary work by returning his utensils unwashed to his cubby hole - after all it was only his own germs. Based on his example I now often make an office tea mug last many days between washes.

I remember there was a short walk between farm fields and over a small stream to get to the beach and this memory also supports my supposed site.

David Iliffe

So then I wondered who the evangelist was (we only knew him as "Commy") and have found some references to a likely candidate in a David Iliffe who died recently.

Littlehampton mourns the death of kind-hearted preacher David Iliffe, see also here and here and here.

A long, cold, wet run

Black Hill from Lacken

During the Sunday meeting I noted that the mountains across the lake were hidden by cloud, but only the top half. The weather forecast was reasonable and I had vaguely scoped out this particular route a week or so before and so, in my usual inimitable way, I set out armed with a cell-phone, a smart (being a smart phone that is not a phone, but gives me GPS and offline maps) and thin shorts and top. The temperature was around 9 'C and due to stay around that. The forecast chance of rain was 10% but of course there is nothing in the law of statistics that forbade me staying within that 10% for most of my run...

The road up to Sorrel Hill pass

The route was along the road to Lacken where I turned hard right up the road to the car-park at the Sorrel Hill pass.  The car-park was within cloud cover and yet, to my surprise, three vehicles were parked there. I followed the turf track up the the summit and met two families on the way - a boy looked at my feet and informed me that it got awfully rough up there - another guy, looking at my clothes and lack of footwear, said I should be locked up, and I agreed wholeheartedly with him.

The summit is marked with a post where I turned right hoping to find the "green road" - my raison d'etre. In fact there was a well worn path down to it from the summit so I hardly needed GPS.

And I hardly need add that the particular "cloud cover" I had entered was the sort that precipitates fairly heavily and so in quite a short while my clothes, such as they were, were sodden and I was getting cold. The only remedy for cold on a run is to keep going and, if possible, to increase one's pace.

The WWII memorial

The green road is quite remarkable. I must go there again in better weather. For the most part it really is green and wide enough for a quad, and in this weather it was most wonderfully slippery so I caught myself slipping or falling several times in my eagerness for speed to keep warm. Warm, I hasten to add, is a very relative term.  What the road was created for I have no idea.

Part way down I noticed this strange standing stone just off the path to the left, but I was too cold to investigate. My picture is blurry because the camera lens was wet, along with everything else. On getting back and googling I discovered it was a memorial to a WWII plane that crashed here on the night of 16th April 1941.

The green road

According to certain maps the green road terminates at the place that, from the road up to the Sorrel hill car-park, looks like the hermit's enclosure in The Horse and his Boy.  My family will know what I mean.  But whoever owns this sacred place obviously did not like hikers emerging from Black Hill so the bottom third has been re-routed to "Pound lane" - there is a big sign announcing this change.  That last third is even steeper and was even more slippery in today's conditions.

I had expected of course to break through the cloud cover and emerge in the dry. But that was not to be - the whole way back was in mist and constant rain. Not much more than drizzle by the time I reached the road but even drizzle is sufficient to keep already sodden clothing sodden and cold.

For the last quarter of my run my imagination was filled with thoughts of soaking for hours in a hot, steamy bath, Harfang style. Alas, when I got back and finally dragged myself upstairs, I found the bath full of grandchildren but, fortunately, we have just upgraded what was once the "best shower in Europe" and it is now a power shower which pretty well equals soaking in a bath.

Detail showing Black Hill and the green road

Statistics: total distance 18.6 miles (possibly my longest - which explains why I am feeling stiff!), max height 605m, average speed moving 5.34 mph.

The whole track

Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God

Is it wrong to ask God for a miracle and then sit waiting for it to happen? Is that faith or presumption? There is this boy: his parents are friends of a friend of mine. The boy has just turned ten but is diagnosed with leukemia and there is talk of bone marrow transplants and intensive chemo and wot not. His parents and siblings would do just about anything to see him better and, indeed, they might well have to do just about anything. It cannot be that I've fallen in love with the boy for I know nothing more about him apart from his name - but maybe I've fallen in love with the case because it breaks my heart. Why should he have to suffer like this? Why shouldn't God stretch his might hand and heal him? Would it spoil some vast eternal plan if he were healed? The parents have asked for prayer with this at the top of their wish list: "immediate healing; that when he has his bone marrow tested this week, it'll be all clear". I go along with this sentiment and so that's just what I have been asking God to do. And I am not ashamed to go on repeating this request: what more can I do? Maybe when I hear more news I'll post again.

See here and here.

Framing fearful symmetry

I was on my habitual 4.25 mile circuit (barefoot) and passing the lake and noticed the perfect reflection, so I beetled back home, dusted off my camera and cycled down to take these shots. I do not know who the couple were and, should they read this post, honestly I had no intention to spy!

Common return

I have mentioned that my father had an attic full of OO-gauge railway and that this was my favourite place to be of a Sunday afternoon. The track was divided into sections, each section being powered via a switch on the control panel and thus from the speed-controller associated with that panel. There were three panels altogether for up line, down line and goods. I divided my circuit into a number of sections and added signalling and automatic changeover between two speed-controllers allowing me to run two trains independently on my railway circuit.  All this has been discussed elsewhere. The point in question is that all these electrical circuits had a common return. Some call this "ground" or "earth" - all the same idea. All potentials (fancy name for voltages) are measured with respect to this and, for convenience, the voltage of the common return is generally called zero.

Having a common return means that each section needed only a single wire to power it - the power returns via the common return. The idea is based upon the scientific fact that all points on a conductor at at the same potential. All straightforward stuff.

So when, in my growing up, I took notice of telegraph wires like in the picture and my father told me that each telephone required two wires, I could not understand why they didn't use a common return and thus almost halve the amount of copper required. And I think my father could not give a satisfactory reason.

It is, of course, because my "scientific fact" is only true if no current flows.  It would be true even then if the resistance of the conductor could be ignored - but only if the current was not changing, because a conductor has inductance and capacitance as well as resistance.  I could wax eloquent and try to explain these terms but this is hardly the place...

For many applications the idea of a "common return" is a good enough approximation to reality but, if large currents are flowing, or the wires are long, or if the current is changing rapidly, the approximation is no longer good enough.

Thus was ruined my early understanding of electricity.

In the process of time I progressed beyond simple switches and light bulbs and, my father's business office (being in full view and about 50m from my bedroom window) having been burgled, I decided it was time to build a burglar alarm. My alarm consisted of a microphone and pre-amplifier at the office end, and in my bedroom the receiving end being an audio detector with a knob to adjust the threshold and a suitably loud bell. A burglar, I figured, was bound to make some noise.

The clever bit was to avail of the earth common return. After all, early telegraph stations used this scheme (see Fig. 151) and thus halved the amount of wire needed and, for me, wire was always in short supply. My Christmas gift list for Michael always featured batteries and wire, though invariably I was given socks instead. What good are socks to man or beast?

Having built it and activated it for the first time, I set my weary head upon my pillow and slept the sleep of the righteous. But not for long. The bell woke me with a start: I rushed over to the window to get a view of the burglary taking place but nothing was visible. I imagined... but I could hardly go over and tackle the burglar(s) single handed and I wasn't that sure of my technology to wake my parents.

Thus was the demise of my one-wire burglar alarm. It was never activated again. Whether it was electrical noise in the earth common return, or a insect that chose to walk across my microphone diaphragm I shall never know.