Hey Ho, The Wind and the rain!

Saturday. 7.55 p.m.  We had Men's Breakfast at the Oaktree Centre this morning. We haven't had one of these gatherings since the one at The  Fountain in Loughton. 

There was a break in the rain. The sun came out, surprisingly. As I write this, it seems still outside.

Sunday. 6.30 a.m. It sounds suspicious as if it's gusting outside as I write this.

9.15 a.m. I've just been out with Alfie. It is as windy as ever, but probably not as powerful as it was in the midst of Storm Eunice on Friday, but still advisable to be wary of falling branches and roof tiles falling off buildings. I saw a large branch had fallen off one of the trees along the path around Oldbrook Green yesterday mid-afternoon, the Shackleton Place side.

1.30 p.m. Now we have Storm Franklin on his/her way. The highest wind speed ever recorded has been measured on the Isle of Wight, at 122 miles per hour. I wonder if all those wind turbines we see all over the area are busily converting these winds into electricity.

I didn't go to church this morning, because of the wind. I have seen pictures of the damage caused by the high winds on Friday, and they had really put me off going out. Cars being smashed by falling bricks, lorries blown over on a motorway, damage done to the O2 dome and the top of a spire in Wells, Somerset didn't exactly help matters. But I managed to catch today's service from the OTC via Facebook.

Monday. 5.44 a.m. The wind is still raging outside.

Since the pandemic struck in late March 2020, I have built up quite a pile of boxes and packaging, some of it left from when I moved into Dexter House, but a great deal from buying items online, mostly from Amazon. I am now in the process of breaking up the boxes ready to take to the tidy-tip but will wait until the wind has dropped. All of these packets and boxes are in the pantry (for want of a better word to describe the small storage room next to my kitchen.) It's not so much the actual boxes that are the problem, which I am breaking down so that some will fit inside other larger boxes so that it will fit into the back of my car, but also the material which is used within the boxes, plastic material, card as well as polystyrene. Much of this has been broken up and put into recycling bags which are taken out to the bin yard at the rear of Dexter House, but the rest will go in my car. As you have to prebook your visit to the tidy tip at Bleak Hall, which is done online via the Milton Keynes website, I want to make sure all this work is done before I book my place so that all this rubbish can be taken away.

10.45 a.m. It's as windy as ever. But, regardless of the weather, more bulbs are popping up out of the ground. The daffodils are beginning to show some signs of appearing along the bit of grass opposite The Cricketers in Strudwick Drive and there are catkins on the bushes the furthest side from The Cricketers on Oldbrook Green. As the saying goes, 'the first green shoots are appearing.

7.45 p.m. I am fairly certain that the wind has subsided. Well, I really hope so. Let's just say it would be nice for things to calm down.

Blow Winds and crack your teeth!

Thursday. 7.50 a.m. Well, the title of this post says it all. The wind has been strong enough to take your head off, making even standing up straight really difficult, but I'm not so sure about the cracking teeth! But I can really imagine how poor old King Lear felt when he was on that blasted heath! Shakespeare uses weather a great deal as metaphors in his plays. In Lear, particularly, it represents Lear's state of mind. Well, I suppose if your daughters were to treat you in the way Goneril, Regan and Cordelia treat him, it's no surprise he's gone off his head and is wandering, literally and physically.

We've just had Storm Dudley crashing through, blowing over trees, tearing roof tiles off houses and generally causing havoc, mostly, it would seem, in the north of England and Scotland. We await the next storm to come in, Eunice. Will she be worse than Dudley? Probably, so batten down the hatches.

7.35 p.m. I am continuing with my writing. I am in the process of a new character. It's strange when I am in the creation process that a character which isn't real can begin to become almost 'real.' I know that doesn't make a lot of sense, but you spend so much time imagining this fictional person that you can almost hear their voice and, in some cases, see them. I suppose this is what happens when you read a book, you imagine what the characters are like and the locations in which they live.

Friday. 5.45 a.m. The sound of wind outside has woken me up, so here I am once more working on writing this. I did the washing up at around 2 a.m. and sorted my washing for going in the washing up machine later, as well as the recycling, which is in its sack ready to take out. I have a feeling the wind is going to get stronger as the day progresses.

Watching BBC Breakfast this morning, they had a piece from the Environment Agency telling us how NOT to go near the sea and other places, such as flooded rivers, but then it was all contradicted by one of their reporters (but I think there may have been more, but I didn't keep my television on much longer.) was reporting from Porthcawl. The sea was being whipped up by Storm Eunice, but the gentleman didn't seem to be in the least bothered. So, why do we get a message to keep away one minute and then a reporter doing the exact opposite? This sort of thing has happened so many times over the years on BBC Breakfast. One of the most memorable being during floods somewhere in England, and a reporter actually standing in the water, up to his knees. What sort of message does it send? It's dangerous, so don't do it. Or are BBC reporters immune in some way? Just plain arrogance. Can they not report from a safer position? Or from a studio?

12.35 p.m. It's still windy. I don't mean a slight breeze. I mean a really powerful storm, shaking the branches of the trees I can see from my kitchen window. It's rattling the doors in my flat. I have taken Alfie out briefly, but I'm reluctant to venture out until much later because there's the possibility of trees being blown down or branches falling and hitting us. I will keep an eye on things and decide whether to go out or not. At the moment, probably not.

We did go out, considerably later than normal. It was still howling a gale, but it was necessary for Alfie to go out.

Saturday. 3.40 a.m. Well, would you believe it? I'm here again, in my armchair, in the lounge, having had a shave. I woke up and decided, because I couldn't sleep, to write a bit more of this blog post. The wind has gone, or, at least, Storm Eunice, has gone. It's peaceful, but I know there has been a great deal of damage, to both life and property. The O2, formerly known as the Millennium Dome in London, has been damaged. Great chunks of it's roof, if that's what you term a sort of large tent/dome, have been ripped off, so you can see the interior, and the top section of a spire of a church in Wells in Somerset has fallen off, videoed by someone on their mobile phone, as shown on the television news yesterday evening.