after the storm

 

The repairs to my garden fence appear to have weathered the latest storm. Amazing what you can manage with a screwdriver and a small handful of self-tapping screws. 

To be fair, whilst it's apparently wreaked soggy havoc elsewhere in the country, the storm was a bit of a damp squib down here. A little bit of breeze, sheets of persistent drizzle. But no significant flooding, which is one up on the last storm, which pushed covers up off of drains and had me fording the raging torrent of an impromptu river across the road on my usual drive home from work.

And, of course, knocked my garden fence down. But according to the Met Office, unlike the lad Christoph who passed through this week, the storm before him was a lass, Bella, and well, you know, Hell hath no fury. Evidently.

Apparently, the UK Met Office started naming storms back in 2014. Apparently, according to a BBC Newsround post I just Googled, "The Met Office hoped that naming big storms will make people more aware of them and how dangerous they can be". Okay.

Also, courtesy of a quick Google . . .

Brand me a cynic, but if people can't read the weather forecast and judge the risk for themselves from the weather warnings given, then I don't see that naming the thing is going to help. It just feels like a publicity stunt. Although I am an absolute fan of our Met Office, and all those clever meteorological soothsayer folks out there in the world in general, as they do go a long way towards helping to keep me and my friends safe, so I guess who am I to gripe about a little bit of PR?

Personally speaking though, on the second point, I find names just as confusing as numbers. As evidenced by the number of times I'll smile genially at a friend or acquaintance as we're chatting along, whilst trying desperately to remember their name, and secretly pleading in my head that my dad doesn't ask me to introduce them.

I don't have to worry if it's my wife stood beside me, she knows me well enough to understand what's happened if I haven't already made the introduction. Dad does too, it's just that he's a little more malicious.

That said, and back to not belittling the storm that's just passed, as I was leaving for the office this morning, I did notice the phoneline to one of my neighbours' houses had snapped and was swinging loose from the telegraph pole in the street. Though there's an odds on chance they have cable anyway, so won't have even noticed.

The above package was delivered yesterday. It contains the replacement heating element for my oven, along with a grill pan grid I also took the opportunity to order a replacement for. The element was duly wrapped in a copious amount of heavy duty bubble-wrap so appears to have survived the transit intact. We shall see when I fit it Saturday.

However, the perilous state of the box as it was delivered by the courier (or rather, abandoned unannounced at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the office, but such are the times we live in) struck me as an amusing juxtaposition to the attached "fragile" sticker, and goes some way towards suggesting how much attention the courier companies pay to such labels.

That I find myself writing about boxes and garden fences suggests very strongly to me that I really need to get back out on the water, so I thought I should add a photo from last year to remind myself of summer sailing. Well, summer sailing in the UK at least, which was when the above photo was taken on passage from Plymouth to Fowey.

In fairness, the passage back, whilst still having to beat into the wind as it had, typically, switched directions overnight, was of an altogether more pleasant character.

I am feeling very landlocked at the moment. I haven't actually seen Calstar since early October, and haven't actually managed to sail her anywhere since the above trip out to Fowey and back at the end of August.

That's just crazy mad. But again, such are the times we live in.