In Manhattan there were always helicopters whizzing down the Hudson River and from my apartment window you could see the aircraft landing at Newark. In central London when I was growing up a commercial aeroplane went over our house every four minutes. For reasons I still don’t understand, we were on the flightpath to Heathrow even though it was many miles away – such marvelous precision. I remember seeing the first jumbo jet on its final descent to London Airport on my way to school in about 1969. Now I can’t recall if it was Pan Am or BOAC, what I do remember is how huge it seemed and almost still, just floating there above Hammersmith Broadway. We hardly ever see an aircraft here; maybe twice a week, sometimes it’s the seaplane that lives on the fjord, sometimes a traffic helicopter. Occasionally, three Norwegian air force fighters come flying low over the lake; they make a thrilling noise that echoes between the mountains, but I miss all the planes I grew up with.
A Bad Guide 
How did you get that effect of serrated sheets of psychedelic frosting ?
There’s been a fearful wind blowing for the past couple of days, right after some heavy snow. Now the snow’s just like sand dunes. It blows across the road like sand, and especially on the lake because it’s so exposed. Well spotted! I didn’t think it would be visible. I’ve taken some pictures of it, I may put them up.
What I meant was the entire sky in the photo. Now the effect has vanished. It’s unlikely that my browser failed to render the photo with the number of pixels delivered. It could be that some internet relay server had “thinned out” the photo, to accomodate high overall traffic, and so delivered a lower-resolution version of it.
I think that actually happens. It’s like a post-office clerk who eats a portion of the pralinés your Aunt Sally sends you every Christmas. He does this so that his boyfriend the postman doesn’t have to lug so much weight on his delivery round.
I can remember when transatlantic jets became common because the London – NY flights passed over our house, at about 30,000 feet I suppose; we’d lie on the glebe pasture on sunny summer days, sucking grass and chattering about the vapour trails. I can also remember as a boy watching a fishing boat leave the harbour to set out across the firth, where the crew hurled painted turnips overboard. Then an RAF plane photographed their dispersal pattern. Otherwise we didn’t see many aircraft.
hurled painted turnips overboard?
A surrealistic picture. My mind boggles. What were those turnips (of what colour(s)?) supposed to represent or to mark? and how did you know they were turnips (or “swedes”?) in the first place?
I would never have expected turnips to float. Swedes float, of course.
And I hadn’t realised the post office were so thoughtful. In the LRB there’s a writer by the name of Roy L. Mayall who works for the post office and tells terrible stories about the management. Now he says they’re giving away all the bicycles.
Lovely photo!
Where and when I grew up, the military was testing fighter jets and we went through several years of sonic booms. Not so much fun.
In Moscow it’s not permitted to fly over the city at all, except when they do the May Day parade and jets in formation buzz over my house on the way to Red Square. It’s terrifying. One year I opened the window and sat on the sill to photograph them. Very surrealistic.
Are you going to have a cold week, Mr. Crown? We’re going to get down to -28 at night, which makes dog-walking a bit of a trial — for me, not the pooch. The pooch loves the cold. How are those goats holding up?
Vesla was shivering yesterday, despite her long wool. Yes, it’s cold here, but we’re by the coast so it never goes down to -28; more like -18 is our minimum. Does your dog slide along the ground smearing herself with snow? Mine does, she absolutely loves to do it.
I remember when some guy landed a plane in Red Square, probably twenty or thirty years ago now.
Riley dives into the snow and burrows like an ice-breaker, then pops up all white. I think she thinks she’s no longer visible. Or she flings herself down on her back and rolls around with her paws in the air. Or she swims in deep snow. And then she wags and wiggles off all the snow. All but the short-haired dogs in the park do something like this. We call it “cleaning the rugs”. (Russians take rugs out to clean on fresh snow: they throw them on the snow, then pick them up, hang them over something, and beat them. The idea is that the fresh snow gets down into the fibers. I’m not convinced it’s a good cleaning technique, but the courtyard is very festive after a good snow — like a bazaar in Istanbul, only with a pure white background.)
Yes, a perfect description of dogs in the snow!
They do that here too with rugs. Only there aren’t very many Norwegians, so it isn’t so festive.
“What were those turnips (of what colour(s)?) supposed to represent or to mark?” Successive photos would show the paths and speed of the tidal currents.
“and how did you know they were turnips (or “swedes”?) in the first place?”
I suspect that the paint was meant to distinguish them from, say, the heads of any seals who surfaced to take a look at the RAF plane. Or the fishing boat.
Too bad if there were lots of painted seals around, then.
Yup; painted seals would be a sure sign of Soviet espionage.
Yesterday a friend and I went for a walk in the park (forest) at the end of the peninsula that is Halifax. Lovely winter day, snow just right to walk on, no wind, calm sea shining under the sun. I thought I saw a dory anchored a little ways off and wondered what it was doing there, but my friend recognized that it was a seal, basking motionless on a small rock barely emerging from the sea.