This is a novelty for this long-suffering blog: a photograph taken from my very own doorstep, with sunrise still twenty minutes off and the sky already plotting its little drama.
Most people know the old saying about the red sky and the fortunes of sailors, with its murky origins somewhere in scripture and the occasional attempt to swap in a shepherd for nautical flavour. For all its ancient bluster, there is something in it when the sun sets. Weather usually trudges in from the west, so a clear evening sky often whispers promises of a fair tomorrow. The morning version, though, is a different kettle of fish. I remain doubtful that a red dawn must always mean cirrus clouds marching ahead of some approaching front. Are those even cirrus?
Another rhyme tries to be helpful and succeeds only in tying the mind in knots:
Evening red and morning grey,
Two good signs for one fine day,
Evening grey and morning red,
Send the shepherd wet to bed.
If the evening be grey and the morning red,
The lamb will go to wet to bed.
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