Intermittent Spring

Photo Album: An Intermittent Spring

The seasons of the year seem to get all mixed up together in the Faroe Islands, and spring seems to come on gradually, with many starts and stops. We have had several days of calm weather, lots of blue sky, and sun. Last weekend we also had lovely weather for my birthday party. In between there were storms with high winds and rain. The rain was as though someone in the sky was dumping a bathtub full of water over my head.

On Tuesday, I stood at the window of the school in Gøta during our break in our choir rehearsal and watched the waves crashing on the cliffs and sending spray high above the roads into town. The view was mesmerizing. I should note that the spring storms are 5 or 10 degrees warmer than the winter storms, though the cold, wet winds still blow right through you.

Yesterday morning was a warm, blue-sky day, and a coat wasn’t even required. By afternoon, I saw that clouds were coming at us from all directions - clouds along the cliffs of Blábjørg, fog pouring over the pass from Gøta, fog and clouds coming over the pass from Hellur, covering the mountain ridge, and more clouds and fog creeping around the headlands of Borgin. I went to Toftir in the afternoon for a concert, and when I returned in the evening, the Fuglafjørður bay was filled with fog. There is no picture of this, because when you are inside a bank of fog, you can’t see very much.

This is the time of year when the days are getting noticeably longer and the nights shorter. There is still light in the northern skies after 11 p.m., and by 3:30 a.m. the skies are starting to get light again. I find it a lot easier to get up in the morning when sunlight is streaming into my bedroom window, than I did in the winter when the world was always a little dim.

Posted on Sunday, May 7th, 2006 at 12:52 pm; Category: General.
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