Weathering the storms!

My number two granddaughter and I set out to walk her small brother round the village late this morning on reasonably fine weather. So much for storms, we thought! On our way back we were caught in a monster hailstorm but all in all this was better than predicted. i guess the worst is yet to come! Storm Eunice is still carrying a red alert for tomorrow! 

Michael Rosen imagines our leader getting the name wrong, among other things!: 

“Dear Mogg, Damn good news about this Storm Eustace. After it's all over, I can be ferried about in a high viz jacket and helmet looking active and sympathetic. People in distress love me turning up on their doorsteps being hearty. 

Catastrophe pro bono 

Boris”.

There’s nothing like a bit of national emergency to boost a politician’s rating. And he does appear to like to be seen in hi-vis gear!

Our eldest granddaughter has been having intermittent power cuts all day, she tells me. We have had remarkably few power cuts in recent years, probably ever since we stocked up with just-in-case candles. We have a drawer full of them in the kitchen. I’d be quite happy for them to remain there untouched a while longer. Writing this, however, may well put a hex on things. Our granddaughter, on the other hand, although only  a few miles away seems to suffer quite badly when we have stormy weather. Power cuts must be a nuisance when you are working from home on your computer!

By the way, why are our news reports talking about power outages? When did that vocabulary shift happen?

Recent storms have led to my brother-in-law, an electrical engineer, to come out of retirement temporarily to go and help with some of the backlog of damage from Storm Arwen. It seems that years of neglect have left us with a very ropey infrastructure! No doubt someone will blame it on the previous Labour government! 

We might be suffering from winter weather but we appear to be doing poorly at the Winter Olympics. Personally, I am always surprised that we ever expect to do well at winter sports. It’s not as though we have the kind of climate, or indeed geography, that has everyone in the country learning to ski almost as soon as they can walk. A bit of success at skating is about all I expect us to achieve. And we don’t do that often. It’s all rather sad though, as the winter athletes have tried as hard as the regular athletes and won’t be being rewarded with OBEs and the like. Maybe the curlers will pull it off though. There is still that hope. 

Meanwhile, Kamila Valieva, the 15 year-old at the centre of the drugs storm seems to have let all the stress get to her in the end and has finished fourth in the figure skating, gold being won by her teammate Anna Shcherbakova, who doesn’t look any older than Miss Valieva. Let’s hope Kamila can put it behind her and go on to a brilliant career: she clearly seems to have the talent for it. And she has time on her side.

The young lady who won the silver medal seems to have thrown a huge wobbler, believing that she deserved to win gold. Alexandra Trusova declared, “I hate everyone! I hate! I don’t want to do anything else in a figure, never in my life! Never, I hate this sport! I hate her, I hate it all!”

“I will never go out on the ice again! Never! I hate! It’s impossible, it’s impossible! You cannot do it this way.” Even when she had calmed down, she still expressed her frustration with the judging: “I am not happy with the result. There is no happiness. Everything was enough for me. I did everything. And after, it is out of my hands.”

A little bit of prima donna behaviour adding to the drama of the Olympics, taking our attention away from more serious events elsewhere.

Stormy times!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!