Stormy travels!

There’s nothing like a good bit of weather. We British love to talk about it. But then, so do the Galicians in the northwest of Spain. Maybe it’s because both places can have unpredictable weather - unpredictably bad and unpredictably good.

This weekend has been a case in point. On Friday my daughter and I set off on a road trip with her two smallest children. We were off the visit my son, just to see him and his family but also to help celebrate his daughter’s sixth birthday. We travelled to Buckinghamshire under blue skies and sunshine, a perfectly lovely to be out and about, with wonderful views of the changing countryside as we went on our way.

We were probably only five minutes along the road when the three year old, rather excited at the prospect of visiting her cousin, started the regular litany of “are we there yet?” but that’s a different story.

All the way down we saw notices warning us of high winds tomorrow, ie Saturday, but in fact Saturday was another lovely day, perfect for a stroll into town for breakfast in a local cafe and a runaround in the park.

On Sunday the promised Storm Ciara arrived with a vengeance. We had a large amount of stuff to transport from my son’s house to the local town hall where they had hired a room for the birthday party. Just getting out the house was difficult as the wind kept trying to tear the door out of our hands. Next was the garden gate, a serious hazard to be negotiated. Finally though my daughter-in-law and I managed to load everything up and made our way down into town to set up the party. (This was a “craft party” - around fifteen children spent a good part of the party time happily making masks, crowns, fish, octopi and goodness knows what else out of paper plates and crepe paper and a lot of sparkly bits - a very good alternative to running around screaming for the whole time. An excellent idea. After lunch, with cake and sweets, of course, there was a certain amount of running about with a sugar high but I was quite impressed with the party organisation!)

My son and daughter followed us down a little later with the birthday girl and her small cousins. By then the rain was lashing down to accompany the high winds. A couple of fences had been blown down and one of the guests, or rather her father, regaled us with tales of the blown-down tree he had to circumnavigate.

In late afternoon, the party proper and the after-party back at my son’s house for the closest friends and family over and done with, my daughter and I decided to brave the weather and head for home, perhaps a foolish decision! But by the time we were stuck in a queue of traffic waiting to get round an overturned lorry it was too late to reconsider. So a rather slow return journey we had of it, with lots of splay from standing water on the motorways, not to mention intermittent torrential rain. Between the rainstorms we had a splendid moon and starlit skies however. Eventually we made it home without mishap.

Another adventure done and dusted.

This morning I have friends from my Italian class contacting me about the local weather forecast. One in particular is concerned that he could be trapped in Greater Manchester tomorrow evening if the stormy weather continues, unable to make it back to Wrexham or wherever he travels from. Optimistically I have advised him to postpone his worries until tomorrow morning.

Ciara may well have blown herself further north by then. And at least we have not been flooded out!