cold and grey.

 The sky outside is covered in deep yellow cloud, the light everywhere is yellow, veering towards orange. It is dust, carried all the way north of the Alps over Spain, it is a cloud of fine sand which has turned the sky deep yellow. This is the first time to experience such an effect, the warning on television yesterday had shown pictures of spain in an orange light. It is almost the same today, now, here.

Listen to the news on the radio. What Russia is calling a special military operation and what the rest of the world is calling an unprovoked attack on a sovereign nation has now been going on for two weeks, at a ruinous cost to Russia, and a high cost to the rest of the world. If they lose, they are going to have to pay the cost of repairing all the cities that they have destroyed.

The sky is still yellow this evening, it is now turning orange. It is almost thinkable that there is a connection between a war that is destroying lives in Europe and a mass of air transporting fine sand all the way across Europe.

A lens arrived today, in a good condition, but not used for many years. The grease that keeps the parts moving smoothly was gummed up,

The thought of sending the item to the makers to have the grease replaced at great cost crossed the mind. But then a tiny spot of fine watch oil on the offending part released the whole mechanism. After careful removal of the surplus oil the lens works.

Should there be a problem it will be possible to send it on to the manufacturer anyway.

And now the dust cloud has passed, the sky has gone cold and grey.