Four seasons in one day

What a grey start to the day, especially after the glorious week of sunrises and sunsets to gladden the hardest work-weary heart. Not that it mattered this morning because I was heading to the Royal Jersey Showground for the Guide Dogs (Jersey) 'Biggest Booksale'. As I was particularly interested in finding local interest archaeology books I though we'd get there bang on opening time to snap up a bargain. But, the car park was already busy and a long queue snaked out from the doors, despite the sheets of rain! Although I didn't find what I was looking for, I didn't walk away empty handed. There were crowds and crowds of people buying bags and bags of books - and in this one weekend alone the charity has managed to raise over £20,000! A break in the rain gave me the time to stretch my legs along the pretty little cove of Petit Portelet. Do you remember, I talked about it here? If you look carefully at this picture you can see Seymour Tower, far out to sea. It was amazing to see how different the pebbles were arranged on this visit. No steps and tiers of stones, but all pushed up to a high steep slope at the top of the bay. All thanks to the pull of the full moon on the high tide. And the rain came down again. And how! I did the only reasonable thing to do, and headed to the Driftwood Cafe at Archirondel for a delicious omelette and to wait out the worst of the weather. You can still see the grey skies and low light in this picture of Archirondel Tower just as I was leaving the cafe. But the biggest joy of the day was when we left the bay and were heading back towards Gorey, and a glorious rainbow filled the sky. The view was so beautiful it made me giddy with delight. I love how close the rainbow looks, like you could just step off the end of the cliff and catch a vibrant handful of colour! If you look very closely to the right of the rainbow you can see another one hiding there, like an echo, a double-rainbow! This headland is called La Crete point and the stone here is made up of jointed rhyolites, which make the land look like the Giants Causeway, although it's slanted on it's side. If you want to discover this closer up it's best to walk left, round the corner from nearby Anne Port, on a dropping tide. We headed towards home, but couldn't resist stopping to take in this view of Gorey Harbour emerging out of the storm and into the sunlight. In the end we didn't make it home. The further west we drove, the better the weather was - so we kept going until we reached the beautiful Quaisne bay. How is it possible that in the space of 30 minutes we went from torrential downpours to glorious sunshine? Not one cloud to mar a spectacularly blue sky. Mid October, and we walked in short sleeves and enjoyed the heat of the day. I love the vibrancy of the water reflecting the sky in this shot across the bay to La Tour du Hoinet. The beach was a hive of activity on the shoreline, with a whale and a dolphin being rescued from the shallow water. Not a real whale and dolphin, just the imitation blow-up variety being used for a training exercise. But it was funny to see hoards of people dashing across the bay, camera in hand, wanting to get up close and help save them. Not me, I wouldn't do such a thing......... We ended the day by chasing the moon. It was a full moon, the Harvest Moon, and with my handy new app I could set myself up in just the right place to watch the moonrise. Unfortunately I still need to get my tripod fixed so the quality of the picture isn't great, but it was lovely to watch the moon rise over the horizon, coloured pink by the setting sun.