Stormy weather

We went for a ride yesterday. The sun was shining and the sky was bright. It turned out to be extremely windy though and it tooks us 30% more time to cycle back!

From about midnight last night until 5:30 or 6am it has been incredibly windy. I mean, we live on an island and it is always a bit windy, but I have not often experienced such winds in my life. I guess there was the great storm of 1987 in Brittany and that of Christmas 1999 in Northern France and Germany, which devasted hectares and hectares of forests and landscapes, including the gardens of Versailles, which trees had been there since the 18th Century.

Anyway, last night's wind made the windows shaking and my thoughts were directed towards the massive lime tree standing 50 yards away from the building... We could hear all sorts of banging noises, crashes, etc... a bit frightening (for me!). And at 6am, a complete silence suddenly emerged. It was really odd. As soon as the daylight permitted, I looked through the window and this is what I could see of our garden:

One of our bike covers was torn into pieces and probably scattered in the entire neighbourhood (sorry!), the council recycling bin was in the middle of the lawn, and the squirrel which lives in the lime tree looked like he was a bit shaky. At least the lime tree was still standing!


With the fence down, the retired couple living on the other side won't have to pretend cutting the edge to peep on our garden. ;-) Is our lawn greener than theirs???

Reading the news this morning we learnt that winds were up to 100 mph over night with torrential rains, especially at the Scottish border. Similar weather forecast is expected for tonight. Looks like it's building up already.