Stormy weather

Picture: GLYN KIRK/AFP

The wind has, thank Heaven, dropped this morning.  It's not often that I find my life governed by the wind, but it was yesterday.  I had promised the Old Bat that I would take her out to eat at our local Italian but the wind got stronger and stronger through the afternoon.  By tea-time is was pretty obvious that the wind had become too strong for the poor dear to venture out, even as far as the car on the drive, so we had a quick re-think and I went out for a Chinese take-away.

Along the coast here the wind reached 70+ mph although in Cornwall and Devon it peaked at over 90.  According to the Beaufort scale, winds in excess of 73mph are classified as being hurricane force.  We don't often get winds that strong here in England.  As Eliza Doolittle was taught to say (in My Fair Lady), "In Hertford, Hereford and Hampshire hurricanes hardly ever happen."

The pictures have all been lifted from the Daily Telegraph web site and show Newhaven (above), just along the coast from us, Porthleven, Cornwall, (below) where the OB and I enjoyed a coffee with my brother and his wife just about where that wave is at its highest, and (bottom) the remains of Brighton's West Pier even more badly damaged.

Picture: ANNABEL MAY OAKLEY-WATSON/REX FEATURES

Picture: GLYN KIRK/AFP