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There and back again
Jun. 12th, 2009 08:44 pmWe had an errand to run yesterday which took us out into Northumberland, about 25 miles each way, less than an hour's drive - and a very eventful couple of hours they were! The forecast was for thundery showers, but we set off in sunlight, with just enough darkness in the sky to make all the colours brighter, more intense - a field of rape was in full dazzling bloom. But that's not what I'm talking about...
As we approached a roundabout near Leadgate, a couple of police motorcyclists roared past us, and positioned themselves on the roadway, stopping the cross traffic. "Odd," we thought, because there was no obvious reason for it. But presumably they were clearing the way for someone, and we drove on, and would have thought no more about it had they not passed us again, a couple of miles further down the road - and then more of them, four or five motorbikes, one of whom veered out quite wildly into the oncoming traffic. All traffic on the country road was stopped, and a police car drove through, followed by a black Range Rover (I think; something of the kind, anyway), an Audi, another police car and one more motorbike. And that was that: they were ahead of us for a while, and then vanished, and I still don't know who they were or where they were going.
On the way home we stopped off at Brockbushes (the big farm shop) and did enough shopping to see us through the next couple of days. It was overcast when we arrived, but when we emerged from the shop the sun was bright and the ground was wet - clearly there had been a sharp downpour while we were shopping. And as we drove on, it became clear just how much of a downpour: the road was more than wet, there was deep water in the gutters and occasionally across the carriageway too. A truck immediately ahead of us was throwing up great sheets of spray, and I felt cheated not to be seeing rainbows. And then the alignment of the road must have shifted, because there were rainbows in the spray, subtle at first but becoming brighter. Then the same thing in the sky, at first the faintest wisp of a rainbow, and then the foot of a brighter bow, until, as we passed a road junction I looked down the turning and saw the whole valley filled with a bright, shallow bow:
This isn't it, this is just the best picture I could take, a mile or so on, when we were finally able to pull in to the verge and stop. It doesn't show you that there was a complete double rainbow, another arch above the one in the picture. But what you can just see, especially if you click through to the larger image, is that within the primary rainbow there are additional arcs of colour, supernumerary rainbows (an expression I did not know before today, and for which I am indebted to my Flickr friend Jan Egil Kristiansen.
As we approached a roundabout near Leadgate, a couple of police motorcyclists roared past us, and positioned themselves on the roadway, stopping the cross traffic. "Odd," we thought, because there was no obvious reason for it. But presumably they were clearing the way for someone, and we drove on, and would have thought no more about it had they not passed us again, a couple of miles further down the road - and then more of them, four or five motorbikes, one of whom veered out quite wildly into the oncoming traffic. All traffic on the country road was stopped, and a police car drove through, followed by a black Range Rover (I think; something of the kind, anyway), an Audi, another police car and one more motorbike. And that was that: they were ahead of us for a while, and then vanished, and I still don't know who they were or where they were going.
On the way home we stopped off at Brockbushes (the big farm shop) and did enough shopping to see us through the next couple of days. It was overcast when we arrived, but when we emerged from the shop the sun was bright and the ground was wet - clearly there had been a sharp downpour while we were shopping. And as we drove on, it became clear just how much of a downpour: the road was more than wet, there was deep water in the gutters and occasionally across the carriageway too. A truck immediately ahead of us was throwing up great sheets of spray, and I felt cheated not to be seeing rainbows. And then the alignment of the road must have shifted, because there were rainbows in the spray, subtle at first but becoming brighter. Then the same thing in the sky, at first the faintest wisp of a rainbow, and then the foot of a brighter bow, until, as we passed a road junction I looked down the turning and saw the whole valley filled with a bright, shallow bow:
This isn't it, this is just the best picture I could take, a mile or so on, when we were finally able to pull in to the verge and stop. It doesn't show you that there was a complete double rainbow, another arch above the one in the picture. But what you can just see, especially if you click through to the larger image, is that within the primary rainbow there are additional arcs of colour, supernumerary rainbows (an expression I did not know before today, and for which I am indebted to my Flickr friend Jan Egil Kristiansen.
