Storm Darragh.

Wow! This has been the worst storm since we've been here. It went on all through the night and is roaring still. I'm blogging now at 1.40 as the power has just come back on but who knows how long that will be for. After a disturbed night when it was hard to sleep with all the noise, the power went out at 6.00am. That was after having reduced power so that the lights were very dim. I caught a few hours sleep before Peter made our tea using the hot water from the thermos flask that I'd prepared before we went to bed. At that point all we could do was stare through wet windows at the churning sea. The red alert came pinging through on our phones with a siren accompaniment which last night we had thought was on the radio.

No cooked porridge for breakfast but oats with sultanas and banana did nicely and the winds though gusting to 80+ mph weren't cold. We kept the sofa jammed against the French windows just in case of a rogue gust. We could see our neighbour had his lights on and wondered if he has his own generator for emergencies. Breakfast over and after checking all our mains radios Peter found that the newest DAB radio also works on batteries. It felt so much better with a some contact with the outside world. Then suddenly the power came back on. I had enough time to make a cup of coffee, wash the dishes and boil another kettle when off the power went again, until a few minutes ago.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at how dependent we are on power for so many aspects of our lives but it does make me feel that we have sold out to technology. However faced with a day of no power we realised we have many books, some board games, cards etc (we need to print out the rules for cribbage as it's been 40 years at least since we last played) and I have my guitar and felting. It has been the perfect opportunity to sit at the kitchen table (um our only table) writing up notes so that I can put autumn 2024 into my journal. I've also done a bit of experimental felting.

The plan for today was to have been - Charities fair in the morning, biscuit baking in the afternoon and this evening we have the RNLI Christmas do at a holiday park near Ynyslas. The fair was cancelled, I don't trust the power for baking and so far no one knows if tonight's do is still on. I guess it depends on them having power for cooking. I'll post this now in case the power goes again. (I did my Duo Lingo after midnight last night to keep my 1042 day streak.)

 

Oh no, something - maybe a tile, has fallen off the main roof onto the fiberglass flat roof above my head. There is absolutely nothing we can do about it right now. Fingers crossed there isn't too much damage. Hope you have all escaped unscathed.

Update - I put on waterproofs and went to check and it doesn't seem too bad. One of the new tiles right at the lower edge has fallen off and one above has slipped. Peter will contact the builder who put them up. He's pretty good at coming round when it's an emergency. I had to go a little way up the road to be able to see onto the roof and the strength of the wind was scary.