I was having a walk during my lunch break last November (2014) and happened to perfectly time walking past the Devon Air Ambulance ready to take off from Derriford Hospital. So I got my phone out and waited and filmed the lift off. You may not be able to tell much from the video, but I was struggling to stand at some points as the wind from the helicopter nearly blew me over!
On Monday I cycled home from work, and it turned out to be the best ride I have ever had! Nothing was planned any differently, so I was expecting a normal ride home from work, but when it started snowing about an hour before I left work, I started to hope that it would snow whilst I was cycling home, and it did!
It had stopped completely before I left work and when I set off it was drizzling. But as I cycled down the road, the drizzle started to turn into the odd flake of snow. About five minutes later it was snowing properly, and it wasn’t just a few flakes or light snow either, it was a full on blizzard! It was magical!!
After struggling to see whilst cycling, due to the massive sized snow flakes and the frequency of them, I stopped on several occasions on my way home to take some photographs on my phone, hoping the phone wouldn’t get too wet, and also a couple of videos, as I saw it as a once in a lifetime event. The photographs didn’t turn out great as my breath was showing due to the temperature decreasing rapidly during the blizzard! It made the photos have a ghostly feel to them! But the videos came out OK.
I ended up cycling home on one of my slightly longer routes which took me past the outskirts of Roborough Village and along a woodland road/path, with great views of Dartmoor. It was great to see the fields and path covered in snow, and everything was so white and bright. As we don’t have much snow in Plymouth, I tried to take as much of it in as I could, so rode slower than usual, also because I was worried that where I cycled was getting slippery with the snow building up on it as we had had very cold weather already which had been causing icy conditions.
When I got home I felt that it was a great ride but was over way too quickly, but it was also one that I will never forget! 😉
Here are some of the (not great) photos I took on my phone.
Here are three videos of the various stages of the snow cycle.
1 – Just after the snow started to come down thick.
2 – Blizzard conditions (for Plymouth).
3 – Looking out over the snow fields of Woolwell towards Dartmoor in the misty distance.
This morning I did my 150th cycle of the year! This is a lot for me and the most in a year yet, but there are still a few more weeks until my Christmas Holiday starts, so I should be able to get a few more rides in yet! 😉 It wasn’t a very interesting ride (see below), just to work as normal in the morning, but they all count!
For you stats lovers (myself included) here are my stats for the year so far, now that I have hit 150 rides.
Cycles – 150
Distance – 482.7 miles
Time – 49 hours 47 minutes
Elevation Gain – 25,486 feet
I don’t usually come across other blog posts that I find very interesting, but my brother sent me this one and, after reading it, I can honestly say it is the best blog post I have ever read! I am into stuff about Aliens and Space (see my astronomy blog – Night Sky Astronomy) so people who are interested in that will find this post excellent, but I think others will enjoy it as well as it kind of blows your mind if you stop and think about it for a bit!