Solar Heating Panel

Heat-seeker

This morning was pretty cold; perhaps the first morning not only to be cold, or cold and damp but Winter cold. There was frost threatened and soon found. Every damp patch (outside of my bed or pants) was treated as either black ice or a diesel spill: it seemed a sensible assumption to keep speeds down on corners and junctions. The Sun was out though, so psychologically the spirit was lifted by the stunning colours displayed by the late Autumn leaves and bright, crisp blue sky (more the reason to imaging slides and pain at every deviation from long and straight).

By the end of the A32 I saw my first snowy car; by the look of it I guessed it couldn’t have done more than 5-miles as its bonnet was still powdered and the engine’s heat had not yet had effect but I knew there was snow reported some 20-miles North in Basingstoke. On the A31 more snowy cars tipped up; some dropping their ice indiscriminately in their wake and in my face.

My Richa gloves managed surprisingly well for the trip although I did pull over on the A31 to let some warmth back in to my finger tips. It only took a couple of minutes and served as a reminder that I had left for work in good time to allow for a sedate journey. The heated grips did their thing well, again.

It was over the next stretch I gave some thought to how well I was coping with 2-degrees and obvious signs of frost where 7-degrees can have me gibbering like a seal with frozen flippers. The Sun was up, and I’ll swear I could feel some of its welcome warmth penetrate the Behring jacket and Ka’s fleece through the wind-chill of 80mph. But then, I was probably so chilled by then that I could probably have detected the heat from a squirrel’s testicle at 100m.

Last night it had rained at 4-degrees in the dark (and with one hand – no, both hands tied behind my back and steering with my chin and braking with other normally concealed anatomy). It WAS a difficult ride, in any case. It was FREEZING once the outer leathers of the gloves had taken some rain on board while we sat in stationary traffic in Fareham (because of a different route in order to perform a task for the Family).

So, anyway. Solar energy must be the difference, whether psychologically or physically I'm a freaking solar panel.