Smoke in the water

No Deep Purple here but there's definitely a smoky taste in my drinking water - I guess having the fire burning all day with frequent squally showers is the culprit but I'm not quite sure what I do about it. There should be a way to disconnect water runoff to the tank but I haven't found it yet. I'll ask Rex the Plumber when he comes to finish off the laundry tub. Still no shower and not having a washing machine connected is more inconvenient than I thought it would be.

The wintry blast that's swept up the country apparently originated from a low pressure system stalled over Stewart Island. I've enjoyed watching the showers come through accompanied by hail and sleet - and flurries of white blobs that danced around in the wind. I'm pretty sure they were snowflakes and hope they can be seen on the video I took yesterday. The Oban weather website is out of commission at present but temperatures must be close to freezing as the hail didn't melt much during the day.

Above and below: hail on the ground at 8am 12 July 2011

During the morning I watched the sleet sliding down the windows - it brought back memories of winter storms in England. The sun come out between showers and again I was blessed by the Weather Gods as I walked down to Deep Bay, checked my rat line and walked home all in the dry.

The novelty of sleety windows :)

Today is milder with bigger patches of blue sky and smaller patches of storm cloud so perfect for getting the wood from under the tarpaulin and into the woodshed. Time I got started...