Fogbow

This morning we skived homeschool for a couple of hours, which is actually a rarity. Somehow we've managed to tow the line pretty much every day, either because we should or we could or we didn't actually have the energy to plan something else.

What happens when you skive is that the guilt assuages while you're out, returns when you get back but in between you get to see the world at a different time of day then you usually would.

Most of my lockdown excursions have been at sunrise, at sunset, at midday and 'after school', which are basically all the times either Tom has not been working on site, the kids have not been on a computer or it's light enough to wander without worry. Today we found ourselves trudging out at 9.30am (a time I would always be out and about pre lockdown) but faced with a new kind of weather phenomenon to navigate: thick fog.

Wanstead Flats is particularly prone to vaporous happenings. Lucky are those who observe early morning bands of mist hanging like ribbons above the grass and ponds, and threading through the stands of oak trees, especially so when accompanied by a stellar sunrise as happened last Friday as the Snow Moon was also present in the sky.

Today the mist was most definitely fog, the visibility being somewhere around 100 metres, way lower than the meteorological 1km mark that differentiates between the two. Weather forecasts to the general public generally refer to a visibility of under 180m. Both are caused by water droplets suspended in the air but mist is less dense whereas fog is like a cloud on the ground. You can't see through it because the surface layers of the atmosphere are obscured by the droplets.

Indeed the air and ground became one as we approached The Flats, the horizon obliterated by a vapid sheet of grey. As we walked a little further into its midst, silhouettes of trees revealed themselves, the children running in and out of view as we all moved forward through it at varying speeds.

Within the stands of trees, it was like being in a bubble, the parakeets and wood pigeons holding caught in the uppermost branches. Mist and fog has a sort of timeless, fairytale appeal – an essence that swirls around castles and encircles magical mountaintops. There was certainly something ethereal about our cloud exploring today.

I've read that you can see a rainbow when it's foggy or misty – or rather a fogbow (that's its actual name). As the water droplets are smaller than rain, however, the full bow or spectrum of colours is harder to see so it often appears as a barely there arc of red and blue. We didn't catch a fogbow today but it was exhilarating to be out in this unplanned and unexpected otherworldly dimension. The hot chocolate and foot warming session when we got home was also worth the skive.