Any one getting the brunt of the winds yet

We had that earlier, complete with weird red Saharan dust sun.  Now it is 20c, sunny with 50mph gusts from SSW ?

Same as Boris – we’re not that far away. Been working inside all morning setting up CCTV cameras, went outside about 11am to find a weird orange world.

Just cleaned about 3mm of dirt of my car, otherwise it’s warm and windy.

Better hold off for another hour or so, so that can cycle home!

I’ve just put out the recycling and it’s gone cold here now.

The wind is really strong, I reckon some wheelie bins will get swept away.

Well, cycling home was fun. Likewise, cadets was cancelled on the recommendation of the Wing, so I’ve the evening at home!

Re Kiwis – very true. I used to live in windy Wellington and 100+mph winds were a common experience – quite scary looking at your reflection in the window flexing and distorting like an image in the Hall of Mirrors. I was told don’t worry about things blowing away. If they were going to blow away they would have done so years ago.

That said, I always found earthquakes a bit scary, particularly watching an office corridor flex while running for the nearest shelter (desk, door frame, or stairwell). Worst I was ever in was a mere (but shallow) 6.5

Thanks for that fascinating link, Ed: I think I said somewhere here that I should have been born a Kiwi. This goes back to the 1930’s and my mother’s cousin, born Elizabeth Bossons. I never discovered her married name, although I do have photos of her and her family.

In 1939 “Lizzie” as my mum called her, had been settled in NZ with her husband and the children they eventually had, for 6 years. They had bought a large area to farm and began to make a good life. In early 1939, Lizzie wrote to my parents and asked if they would like to emigrate: there was another large area of land adjoining theirs, they would sponsor my parents and two brothers. Dad was especially keen, having been a miner from the age of 14 in 1918, he loved the soil and always wanted to farm, my 2 brothers were also excited. (they would have been 10 and 8 years old then) The family began making preparations to leave. Then my maternal grandmother became very ill with what appears from mam’s description to have been a brain tumour. Mam just would not go, despite grandma urging her to leave. Grandma died 6 years before I came along, on the very eve of WWII: September 3rd, 1939. Every now and then, through the years, in mam’s hearing, dad would say to me “You should have been born a Kiwi.” There was no bitterness I could detect, but years later I grew to understand that he had lost the chance to have the working life that he always wanted, out in the open air and not down a pit for 51 years. The permutations are interesting when I consider what my life might have been like as a sheep farmer’s son, born in another country.

However, reading the link you found also reminds me that I was born in a country without many natural dangers, most of which are considered to be more dangerous by its inhabitants, than others who live with the kind of extreme natural forces desribed in your link.

Life is strange, and getting stranger as I get older. ” je ne regrette rien. ”

EDIT: I just re – read your last, regarding the sick mother in law. What a strange coincidence!