Besieged

There's a bit of wild weather out there today. We have 70mph gusts forecast and although the local forecast is for 46mph winds, it seems to me the 70mph gusts are passing by here.
So we're holed up. The house is booming everytime a gust flattens the bushes. I think this is to do with the wind passing across all the little gaps and crannies in the house's skin producing the sort of noise you can make by blowing across the top of a bottle. But on a house sized scale of bottle...with a gale sized scale of blow. And the front door is vibrating, not to mention the office door and the roof...I must go up to the attic and see if it is in fact vibrating.
We'd just decided probably we wouldn't go out today when a whole lot of cars went past. I imagine they're from the local schools; parents collecting children because the schools don't want the kids stuck there tonight.

That takes me back a bit...to messages from schools saying the heating was broken again, could we collect the children ASAP. (Not to mention the day after the Hurricane and taking five mile detours to avoid downed trees). And further back, to floods in Devon and riding off down the valley to 'look at' the flooded Teign raging (rather meekly raging it must be said) across the fields. ("Oh we're only going to look at it from the road Mummy, promise not to go anywhere dangerous") Wicked children that we were, we plunged straight into the fields and rode up and down getting soaked to the waist and eyeing the actual river course longingly. Wicked, but not stupid...we kept well away from the river :).
And also remembering a bit sideways, watching 'A for Andromeda' (bit of a cult tv series now, I believe) and the bit where the beautiful alien saved the world from a nitrogen devouring bug she had herself allowed to be let loose...two characters secretly meeting on a storm blown clifftop realising that the weather changes and atmospheric disasters were maybe coming from their own laboratory.
Not like today when the whole world discusses how we're destroying that atmosphere on the news media. Well fancy that! We didn't need Andromeda to spoil the world for us. Though we could do with her saving it!

To return to the present. I'd quite like to go out in the storm. Just not as much as I would have done when I was a kid. So old age has got a little hold on me...ten-fifteeen years ago I'd have been out there and only considered the unwisdom after I'd enjoyed the fun. Now, regrettably, I'm considering cold wet feet and flying branches and saying ,wisely, Oh I don't think I ought to go out.

Actually I think I ought to go out. (just watched a van drive very slowly and carefully past the oak tree...wouldn't it be more sensible to drive very quickly past it?)

BOOM!!!!! RATTLE!!!! WHOOSH!!!!
Cor! I love a good storm :)

Shortly after this the power failed, as expected. Since I'd been watching phone and power lines lashing backwards and fowards through the window we weren't surprised.
Wait a minute, that's not quite right.
I mean, since I'd been watching power lines, through the window, lashing etc etc.
That's better. Though the grammatically incorrect version would have been very very exciting :)
So I did go out and took the dog who was horrified by one big gust and put his ears back and hid behind me. As I was being blown backwards at the time this nearly caused an accident which would certainly have confirmed all those stuffy ideas about safety and staying indoors.
I took movies which don't seem to be in a compatible file type with google. Bother.
Never mind. It was great!
And the movies were only of a tree blowing about a bit and the wind doing that crackly thing it does on home movies so you've been spared a typical home movie :)
The afternoon was a bit dream-like. We kept thinking we'd do things we couldn't do without power and then watching the storm. Sort of mesmerising it was. Once or twice the lights flickered on a bit and things went Beep? hopefully and then went Beep :( sadly and the lights went out again.
Later on I went to get a take away as we'd decided we couldn't do macaroni cheese without an oven and I found that the next village was back on. Our tiny hamlet was an island of darkness. On the way home I passed two men and a flashing van. Men were up a pole, doing brave things in the dark. Half an hour later the power came back. Marvellous men :)

Then, of course, we were able to listen to the news and hear all the sad tales of people dying in the storm. It's hard to accept that the same storm I had enjoyed so much was busy killing people elsewhere.

This old barn has seen a few storms. Sadly, it's going to be made into offices. Ridiculous!


Serene reflections yesterday before the storm.