Surviving the weather

Saturday 23rd November. In amongst the heavy rain and localised flooding, the sky cleared last night and this morning the fields and hedge rows are covered in frost. I know in about two hours time that there is heavy rain and 60mph gusts coming in from the south. We are certainly experiencing a huge diversity of weather. I watched the documentary on the recent hurricane/super storm Sandy and the devastation. All the precuations the infrastructure companies took and still the weather just overpowered them. I felt sorry for the folks who had to get the utilities back on and working. People were back to torches and the good old candle for light. I am very proud that whilst what we do in terms of lighting may be taken for granted, people miss it when it is not there. I know that good lighting can either be a statement or is so subtil it is not noticed until it goes out. Both are valid, and I go back to what I said some years ago - I am proud to be a lighting professional.
Talking about coping with difficult weather conditions, I am always amazed at how well some creatures cope with the weather.  The picture is a spiders web, has to deal with all stresses and strains, sometimes the web gets broken and the spider gets out there and fixes it. I took this picture on a coast walk in Corwall after a heavy night of rains, which the spider and web survived! Enjoy

 

It has been a busy week, I went to Seeing is Believing at Bruntingthorpe Airfield. I was particularly impressed with a trenching system, that cut a 100mm wide trench to required depth, and "sucked" all the material into the lorry hopper for re-use as recycled material. The speed of the machine was staggering. New technologies like this certainly help with the vital infrastructure our highway lighting needs. Met lots of people and learnt a bit more about lighting and highway signs. A good day.  Next week I am going to a technical discussion forum on SP ratios. Survive the weather. Pete

Cupola's and seeing is believing

It's is late friday evening, been a busy week and I have an early start, so I am doing my blog tonight. Definitely some rather sad dull days towards the end of this week, so I thought I might just give you a hot sunny picture I took in Mosta in Malta. Those of you who know St Paul's cathedral will have seen the magnificant dome. The curved dome section section is sometimes called a cupola. See cross section through showing the construction.

It was blistering hot 38 degrees C, and I had parked up about a mile from the town centre and managed to get lost in the maze of streets before finally arriving at the square where the chuch   Duomo di Mosta: St. Mary o la Rotunda with one of the biggest cupola's in europe. It is huge 39m in diameter. Fantastic sun drenched architecture sitting against a nice warm sky and some european lighting units sit in front of it. I 'll be showing some diving pics of Malta in later blogs

Next week I will be going to Seeing is believing. It is mentioned on the ILP website, and is an opportunity to let other people, with highway based lighting disciplines, know about the ILP. You also might want to check the ILP website out for the competency framework document. We are busy promoting the Institution and I am involved in some of forward planning. Have a good week. Pete

Autumn and Lux Live

A wet, dull autumnal saturday morning, but the promise of sunshine later. I do like the american phrase "the fall" when the leaves turn colour prior to falling. Some amazing stunning colours that you will only see at this time of year. I am sure many of you, like me, enjoy getting out for a walk, to take in the colours and the see the leaves on trees all changing. The photograph is of one leaf, with the sun light on it, so the colour and texture is there to see and enjoy. It might not show on the blog version, but there are flies and other small insects taking in the sun and using the leaf as a refuge. Yet sadly the colours fade and the leaf will fall and provide compost.

 

 

I spent two very useful days at Lux Live and met a lot of people. Those of you that went, I hope, were as pleased as I was with the whole diversity and range of the stands with all the products that were available to look at and discuss. I was particularly impressed with the ILP stand and the number of people that came and had discussions and took information packs. I think the message that we are about promting lighting from all areas and disciplines is slowly getting out there. I learnt so much from conversations with people that know about lighting and at the same time realise that so many people need to be able show to clients and third parties,  that they have knowledge and experience and can back that up with some sort of qualification. Our core values of education,training and being able to have members that can demostrate competency is our strength. Have a good week. Pete

 

 



Fireworks, people and Lux Live

Saturday 3rd November, and it is (for many), the weekend they attend a firworks display. Some of you may even remember Guy Fawkes and an attempt to blow up parliament! Like a lot of things, people sometimes enjoy the celebration, but miss the point of what it is about. I'll come back to that observation from time to time. It brings me nicely to my photograph this week. Taking pictures of fireworks exploding into the night sky is not too difficult with a decent camera. I am staggered the way our eyes can deal with it all, the colour, light dark, movement. A black sky suddenly burst into light. So I often watch the display through my camera viewfinder, but still enjoy it. I like this photograph because it not only shows a burst of spectacular patterns, but looks like two trees made of light shining in the dark sky.

One of the things I said in my speech at the lighting sunnit, was how important people are. The ILP is about people. I say this, because I wanted to mention Jo Tutt, who worked at the ILP Head Office at Rugby and was a huge help to me in getting ready for the summit. Jo has left the ILP to go and be a teacher, so I just wanted to use my blog to say "thank you Jo for your good work for the ILP and I wish you all the best for your future career in teaching".

Finally. Next week is Lux Live. I will be there for both days. Come and see the team on the ILP stand and have a chat. I will be taking part in a discussion forum on highway lighting on tuesday, giving a paper on wednesday morning on lighting and planning, where it is going and presenting an award to the Society of Light and Lighting (SLL) young lighter competition winner. Our immediate past President Allan Howard will also be presenting a paper at the same wednesday session as myself, so we hope to see you there. It should be good and I hope to see you there.
Have a great week.
Pete