A marked change in pressure. Cool breeze gone. Muggy close heat where before warmth from direct sun. Clear skies replaced by a full array of clouds. Low billowing cumulous and streaky mare's tails above. First rain last night, enough to just wet the ground. A deep inhale of the scent before bed. Train to Dundee along the coast in the morning, the haze is thick over the sea. Tensions run high. There's a far right rally in Dundee (and across Scotland) – well countered and outnumbered but more than anticipated. Union jacks and saltire flags, one that just says 'Jesus' and placards for Reform. They only have rage, we have joy on our side, songs and poems. Our chants ring across the square, louder. Refugees are welcome here. This is what community looks like. This is what solidarity looks like. The crowd breaks up as the student 'revel' begins, ceilidhing in costume as gods and stones and filling the square with messages of peace and love. Whose square? Our square. Crowded and sweaty train home, more factions and colours, but the fans are just happy and sunburnt in their red strips – Aberdeen won the cup.

I’ve been saying it’s not rained for a month for a while now. It must be longer. It gives me a sense of unease. Scorched grass. Arid dune-scapes. A feeling that there’s dust hanging in the air. The BBC reports the driest spring in 60 years. Getting frustrated by sprinklers on pristine university lawns, while there’s advice from Scottish Water to take short showers. According to SEPA my area has ‘moderate scarcity’ of water, one step below ‘significant’. I’ve headed over to Hospitalfield today to check on the Automatic Ground Station. The cool of the inside of the building gives me the feeling of being in my mum’s school classroom during the holidays. It’s quiet, lots of the staff are away on a trip down south. I tell Veronika I’m going up the tower, just for safety. We’ve not received an image in a few days so clearly something is not working. The AGS is housed in the object collections store room, halfway up the spiralling staircase to one of the towers: the antenna on its roof. I have images in my head of the antenna dislodged and dangling down the side of the tower, or the AGS strewn across the floor in bits. Instead when I get to it, nothing has moved and it’s politely telling me what’s wrong on its display screen: Wifi error. After un- and re- plugging the set up it’s back to displaying the time of the next pass (10.00pm) and seems to be working fine. While I wait for the reboot I notice the window is open, and a plump wood pigeon is on the sill, threatening to come inside (it’s clearly been in before). I squeeze past the rail of costumes, and various Victoriana to close it, pushing the window gently into contact with the puffed up bird. It ruffles and quickly drops off, down and away in response. Out on the roof of the tower I’m drawn again to the bricks, the lichen on the outer walls, and the lightning rod. The antenna has joined this collection of weathering things: as though the tower’s small footprint is some strange elevated plinth. There’s some speckles of patina now on the antenna, and its once-bright copper has dulled somewhat since we installed it: it’s settling in. I have a camera with me to document it in place, and I feel a bit daft as I spin around the tiny area trying to cover all the angles. It’s so bright it’s hard to see if I’m in focus so I blindly snap more than I need. The only cloud is a vague smear on the vast blue sky: like one weak skoosh from a nearly empty can of white spray paint. From my spinning I notice I can see the water tower from here, on its hill above the pond. It’s sham-medieval, Victorian, and no longer supplies the town with water. I do a quick search on Canmore and find the impetus for its construction: “The drought of 1870 and the increase in housing around Arbroath precipitated the Arbroath Corporation to seek a supplementary water supply.” (Precipitated, ha). Its caverns must still contain gallons and gallons. A few years ago there were plans to turn it into a diver training centre (for offshore workers) but it didn’t come to anything. To the north there’s new housing going up on former grain fields. Peeking through the balustrade (parapet?) I can look over to more of this building’s towers: I know one is an old water tank and the other square one has sundials carved into its sandstone faces. I head down and outside to find Ross to tell him about the pigeon (and that I’m off the tower). I find him in the back of the walled garden while another small drama is unfolding. Together we watch a man (summoned for this job) very calmly coax a bee colony into a new hive. It’s quite mesmerising to watch the bees drift in the air around us, and the mass of bee-bodies clustered on the elder bush gradually slump into the box. He says there’s four hives nearby, and that these bees are not from those, but he’ll find somewhere for them.

Unseasonably hot for April. A sustained period of dry weather and clear skies. Dusty streets, high pollution and tree pollen adrift. Throat scratch. Can't actually remember the last time it rained. Reports of wild fires on the west coast, on Arran and Bute. It's the school holidays. Another news report of chaos at East coast beaches, masses of people flocking to the sea. Ice cream headaches for North sea dookers. As one of them, met an unexpected headwind cycling east from Arbroath to a beach, but the breeze felt hot. Wind sock dancing. And still cold at night.

"To discuss the weather together = this it’s all the same of talking/ not talking about love." Barthes, The Preparation of The Novel Familiar but ever shifting images. A view from above. From the ground it’s been clear skies, daffodils, fire crackle, cold hands, cold breeze, hot cheeks, happy tears. Familiar but ever shifting images. Always contradictions. To talk/ not talk about love in times of genocide. To talk/ not talk about weather in times like these.

At 12.30 the ground station recorded this pass. At 13.00 I was on the other side of town and heard a sonic boom. Squinted up in the sun to see two low flying jets at high speed, heading out to sea, leaving white trails on a bright blue sky. We aren't far from a military base, after all. Around 15.00 I head to the tower for some checks: increase buffer mins to 2, ensure ventilation around the AGS, check antenna's position. On the roof this time the puddles have dried up and the sky is clear. Some of the old bricks holding the tarp in place have Arbroath imprinted on them, and I wonder when and where in the town they were made. Just a small cold breeze to remind that it's spring, not summer. Daffodils almost seem luminescent in the strong light. Around 16.00 I'm down at the beach, the tide is high, almost all the way up to the sea wall. There's a dead seal that's lost its head and a solid pink plastic bottle left on the stair pillar like an extra ornate twirl. It looks recently left and goes in the bin, the seal looks like it's been there a while.

Today I visited the antenna on top of the tower after it was installed yesterday (thanks to Ross and Kirsten!). There's a bright enough sun to squint but not enough to warm the body, just flush my face. Or that could be the walk up spiralling stairway and the sudden exposure to wind. The AGS is further down the stairs, in the collections store room, just next to the Victorian telescope that I'm told is rumoured to have be used out here on the tower. Now, the gleaming copper v-dipole antenna is standing firm – just a slight wibble in its arms in the gusting wind. Strapped to the eroding sandstone. A lightning rod is a nearby companion, a much older installation. Strong shadows and pools of water sit on the roof from last night's rain. Fast moving clouds make a repeating rhythm of sensations, like drum beats. One beat sun, one beat rain flecks, beat cloud, beat sun, beat rain etc. The wind buffeting is a constant through the day. The sea is silvery in the distance with a slightly hazy horizon. Looking down to ground level, daffodils smile back. Dots of primrose. Bluebells are on the cusp. Perhaps less distinct waves of their flowering than in the past. The beats quicken. Up here it's just me, but down from the tower it's a busy day, the garden club volunteers have lots of spring jobs to do, the Travelling Gallery bus is visiting, the cafe is packed, and there's more going on than I know about. I shout to Andy (who drives the bus) – he can't hear me over the wind, but I take a photo.

First daytime image from the antenna at Hospitalfield. Weather: Increasingly drizzly and windy from the start of the day. Hoods up. Rain that sounds like it might be hail. Dry ground means big puddles.

Yellow weather warning just starting here. Bright but very very windy from 2 floors up, leaves swirling everywhere, bins falling about