Thursday 23rd February 2017

In order to make our mild weather more interesting, a few years ago, the Met Office began to name storms. And yesterday, Doris blew in. I mean, who names a storm Doris? Doris Storm sounds like she could be either a background character in a gritty northern soap, or someone who plays roller derby. Not a life-threatening storm!

And so yesterday, along came Doris, blew a lot of warm air, knocked over a lot of trees, took out most major rail routes, disrupted power, and made for dramatic photos on coasts, especially in the west. Here in St Maggies, it was windy, and caused minor damage to the garden, but more of that yesterday.

Wind had built up during the night, and by dawn was a full blown (ahem) gale. Trees and other plants were blown sideways, and cats made it clear that unless there was a danger of bursting, there was no way they were going back outside. And neither was I unless I had to. And I had to as it was bin day, even if Jools had put them out when she left for work, but I had to go back out several time to rescue our and those of our neighbours from blowing away. The rain was horizontal, and wasn't much fun, but then interesting too, in the sense that I was quite interested to get back inside.

But then there was always work to take my attention from the weather, and then there was a promise of a nice early meeting at eight, that only two of us turned up to. We swapped news, and then got back to the stuff we should be doing.

Thankfully I have the radio on in the background so to keep my mind from wandering too far.

Outside the wind peaked just after lunch. I looked out the back, now bathed in bright sunshine and the fountain had been knocked over, but that was the extent of it. Clouds rushed across the sky, light changed moment by moment.

Before it got dark I go back out to put the fountain upright, fill the reservoir with water and re-position the pots I had placed around it. Ten minutes later it was down again, like me leaving the beer festival! Ha.

Jools gets home safe and sound, and I can get round to cooking dinner: grilled marinated lamb, fried potatoes and garlic mushrooms. I had got the lamb out that morning, made a marinade out of honey and mustard salad dressing, smoked salt, pepper,fresh garlic, mustard seeds, rosemary and a clove or two. Whizzed up with some olive oil, and it was perfect. And the meat was done just perfect, lovely with the dressing on.

Late in the evening news came that Leicester had sacked their manager some ten months after guiding them to the most unexpected of league triumphs, showing that there is no sentement left in the game, and the reality that you're only as good as your last game.