The observation book

Last updated: 8 January 2006

Observations are written in a bound book kept at the desk. They are written in pencil. They are written when the centre is open, from the porch if it is dry and from the door if it is not. They are not written on Sunday, except during the Gathering. A Monday by arrangement may catch up a weekend, or it may not. Gaps are gaps. Nothing is inferred from them.

The book, open. Photograph from the centre collection. The hand is the desk’s.

The thermometer hangs on a nail in the porch, on the side that does not take the afternoon sun. The gauge stands in the yard behind. Mrs Hedley writes when she is in; Mr Robson writes when he has walked the paths; others write when they have the desk. The same day may have two lines. We have not tidied them.

The book has been kept for the website since 1999, and before that in a school register which is not on this page. Some years are fuller than others. The February 2001 page has thirty-two frost marks. February had twenty-eight days. The marks are still there. We copy onto the record when we have time, and not always in the same words.

Visitors who ask to see the book may see it. It does not leave the desk. We do not send a page by electronic mail. A few days are remembered as themselves; see extremes. The climate as we publish it is on the weather page.