Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind

[megustaleer]

- which is being very unkind to our Scottish contingent at the moment.

I hope you and yours have not suffered too much damage and that if you are among the ones with no power that it will soon return - it sounds very scary if the wind is too strong for the engineers to get out and do repairs :yikes:

[Hazel]

It's a blooming nightmare. I found it very difficult to push the pram and guide eldest to school. Our trampoline was up-ended and the enclosure poles bent this morning. Just now it is still blowing a gale and I have to venture out again at 2:30pm to collect eldest. On the way to school we saw dozens of trampolines up-ended, crashing down fences, and one lying in the road.

[Barblue]

Sorry to hear about your situation Hazel - and everyone else that far noth.

Here in Lancashire last night was really scary. We had very high winds, sleet that plastered itself onto the windows and blocked out the view from top to bottom, and covered the road with a film of ice. To top it all we had sheet lightening and thunder right overhead. We have a tree in our front garden that is diseased through its trunk and roots and needs to be removed - a very old, very large horse-chestnut - I was saying a prayer or two that it would not come down last night!

It is still windy here, but the ferocity has abated somewhat thank goodness.

[Jen]

Wow! The only excitement here last night was a very aggressive cat fight!

I hope it's all calmed down now.

[MarkC]

On the way to school we saw dozens of trampolines up-ended, crashing down fences, and one lying in the road.

Displaced trampolines is one consequence of a gale I hadn't ever considered. It certainly wasn't a problem I noticed in 1989 when trees were down all over Bristol, including one through the roof of the hall bar :eek:.

[David]

Well, the consequences of the storm washed up on my beach today. A ship carrying timber was wrecked off Dorset and the planks have now all arrived here.

LOTS of them.

The shore was quite bizarre: strewn with timber, but most of it having been gathered together in huge piles along the beach like bonfire night in overdrive, most of them being 'guarded' by whichever opportunist had collected it. Various vans and lorries were being piled up with wood as the unseemly scramble of greed got going. No sign of police or any sort of authority, who appear to have focused on the more populous stretch in Worthing, according to the BBC News coverage here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7198735.stm).

It'll be interesting to see how much is still there tomorrow!

[Hazel]

Are you going to build yourself a beach hut, David?

[David]

Are you going to build yourself a beach hut, David?
:D

Well, the price they fetch round here I really ought to! Come to that I could build a beach palace with the amount there!

Edit: there's a better picture in the latest article (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7199667.stm) - worth pressing the enlarge button. It's not quite as thick as that where I am.

[Hazel]

Blimey! I see people are now guarding it and the owner's have instructed the Worthing Council to sell it on.

[Barblue]

I think they ought to start building a giant Ark for the nation! Looking at the fields next to our house, we could actually start a new Wetland Centre. Mind you the birds that are around are making life interesting.

[David]

Blimey! I see people are now guarding it
Well three vans departed with their booty in about a twenty minute stretch whilst I was there yesterday, so they'll have to get cracking with the guarding! Even a few old chaps with planks over their shoulders hauling them off to cars ready to be strapped on. Whisky Galore with wood!

[MarkC]

I was pottering around various country lanes outside Clevedon the Sunday before last and all the rhynes were full and the water table was right up, lots of the fields were part submerged. Can't imagine it's got any better in the last week or so.

Fortunately no flooding yet.

[Freydis]

Well three vans departed with their booty in about a twenty minute stretch whilst I was there yesterday, so they'll have to get cracking with the guarding! Even a few old chaps with planks over their shoulders hauling them off to cars ready to be strapped on. Whisky Galore with wood!

Good grief! BBC News is my homepage at work - how did I miss this story? (Though it has been kind of nuts at work the last couple of weeks...) I had to forward it to my carpenter hubby. (LOL) Whisky Galore - one of my fave films!

[David]

Good grief! BBC News is my homepage at work - how did I miss this story?
Forgive me if you've mentioned this already, Freydis, but are you a Brit abroad or just an American who appreciates BBC News? :)

My stretch of beach is still littered with the stuff, washed into chaotic timber wigwams by the tide! Even yesterday I walked by a chap with a trolley which he was loading up. There's a tiny day-glo sign saying it's theft but no one's very bothered! Central Worthing beach has great towering cliffs of planks where it's all been taken to one spot, but I don't know who on earth they're going to sell it to. The metal grabs used to pick it up and dump it in the trucks has reduced much of it to matchwood.

...Oh, right - match manufacturers! :rolleyes:

[Freydis]

Forgive me if you've mentioned this already, Freydis, but are you a Brit abroad or just an American who appreciates BBC News? :)


American, though I was mistaken for a Canadian in Victoria Station once. :) Let's just say that world news coverage here in the States is indifferent, at best...or should I say, practically nonexistent? Sometimes it gets so nuts at work, though, I don't have time to check, which is why I missed your timber-tale...

[Barblue]

Gale force winds, sleet and snow following a night of torrential rain has been our lot today. We've had reports of fallen trees, roads blocked, motorways closed all within a ten mile radius. Today, we were supposed to be travelling to Kent for the weekend to celebrate a relative's 102nd birthday. Tomorrow they say its snow from the north for us! We are hoping it all disappears and we can zoom down the motorway on Saturday if only for a cup of tea and a slice of cake and to wish 'Auntie' happy birthday.

[David]

Now after the most recent ship ran aground off Blackpool, I read that packets of McVitie's choccy biscuits are washing up on the Lancashire coast.

I get planks.

Blackpool gets biccies.

There's no justice in this world, y'know...

:rolleyes:

[Freydis]

I get planks.

Blackpool gets biccies.

There's no justice in this world, y'know...

:rolleyes:

But David, planks are better for you. Less fattening. More fibre. And burn more calories when you haul 'em up from the beach. :p

[Barblue]

But David, planks are better for you. Less fattening. More fibre. And burn more calories when you haul 'em up from the beach. :pBut I suspect planks or biccies, it's still stealing if I go over there tomorrow morning and try and bag a few packets off the beach for my stock cupboard!