Snow, Sleet, and More Mud

For a short time around seven last night, with the wind in the southwest, the weather settled to some serious snow.  As always, it was patchy across the peninsula, with the worst - also as always - along the B8007 at the back of the Ben, where at least one motorist had to give up and await rescue.  At Achnaha - picture above courtesy Tony Thain - there was quite a covering, but it was thinner and more like hail than snow in Ormsaigbeg.

By this morning most of it had gone except in patches, here amongst the strawberries in our back garden.  It's surprising any of it settled here as the ground is sopping, and the vegetables which should be producing at this time of year, such as cabbages, broccoli and sprouts, have simply given up.  We're left with leeks which seem to grow in any conditions.

By lunchtime the wind had moved firmly into the east-southeast, picked up to about force five to six, and begun to bring in heavy, sleety rain, just about the very worst sort of weather.  It didn't deter the three teams of Scottish and Southern Energy men who spent the day working their way along the back of Ormsaigbeg cutting down all the trees under the power lines.  They were pretty ruthless, taking out scrub....

....and climbing the more mature trees to cut away any branches that threatened the lines.  Most people seem to welcome this, as falling trees are one of the most common causes of our too-frequent power outages.

Despite the weather, the men doing the work seemed very cheerful.  The teams, two in each pickup, are from Dunoon, and seemed to be enjoying their stay on the Ardnamurchan peninsula.

Just to cheer us all up Dominic Cooper at Swordle has sent me his rainfall figures for the past four months:  October 163mm   November 148mm   December 316mm  January 275mm.  This makes a total of 902mm or 35.5", a depressing throughout - so here's a pretty picture of Sanna in summertime to remind us all of what's to come.