Cirrus on a September Saturday

Cirrus are the highest of ten main cloud types [The Cloudspotter’s Guide, by Gavin Pretor-Pinney] with delicate white streaks and with a fibrous or silky appearance.  Today was definitely a Cirrus day, although I need my cloudspotter’s guide to identify the different species.  It’s a lovely way to spend a warm September Saturday afternoon: watching the clouds, enjoying the late summer sunshine which came through the Spissatus [the thickest Cirrus] and slowly dissipated the thicker clouds, and transformed them into the typical thin streaks and fuzzy white and transparent fluff of sheepskin across the sky.

And then the afternoon took hold

I read a bit and slept a bit (it’s been another busy week with lots of travelling up and down the country) and swept the patio and was pleased that the Guardian’s first book award long list includes ‘The Emperor of all Maladies, by Mukherjee describing it as a ‘monumental “biography” in which the American oncologist Mukherjee treats cancer as a character in the human drama, from the first recorded mastectomy in 500BC to the heartbreaking stories of his own patients’.  Amen to that: it really is an amazing book to be able to tackle such a sensitive and difficult topic in such a way that you are absorbed in the history of this ugly disease and begin to understand some of the phenomenal progress that has in fact been made in the attempt to find a cure.

If you follow the link to the long list (above) you can in fact read an extract of the book.

Back to Cirrus: these clouds usually develop into something more threatening and indeed, the forecast is that a band of rain will pass overnight, resulting in a much cooler day tomorrow.  Cumulus will mix with Cirrus and take over the sky.

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