Saturday 30 January 2016

Naming names.

Gertrude has been a beast today I must say.  She has howled and raged all day in the Scot's pines and the noise has driven me mad.  The only way I can get any peace is to turn off my hearing aid.   She hadn't stopped the farmer from walking round on the last shoot of the season with his syndicate group.   It was bitterly cold but boosted by a whisky-laced flask of coffee, a Scotch egg (sorry John), sandwiches, a piece of slab cake, a packet of crisps and a large bunch of grapes he set off at ten o'clock in fine fettle.

Friend W and I took ourselves into our favourite cafe for a bowl of vegetable soup and a ham and mustard sandwich.   Delicious.

No soon is Gertrude disappearing off the horizon, accompanied by flurries of snow over high ground (us?) than Henry puts in an appearance on Monday/Tuesday, accompanied by even stronger winds 'which may cause structural damage'.   

The one advantage of naming storms that I can see is that it does make it easier to recall how many storms we have had this Winter.
Henry will be the eighth and the farmer cannot ever remember so many storms in one Winter before. 

We are set to meet four people in Hawes tomorrow for lunch (a change of venue as the restaurant we were to meet in was flooded out and rang on Friday to say that their renovations were not finished).   We are keeping our fingers crossed that snow doesn't prevent us all meeting as this is the third time we have arranged to meet and the other two have gone wrong.

So everyone will wrap up well.  But after all, it is Winter isn't it?

18 comments:

Wilma said...

Eight storms seems like far too many to endure in one winter! Hope your plans for the new venue go as scheduled.

Robin Mac said...

Gosh Pat you are certainly having a dreadful time with the storms. Our cyclones (in Australia) are named with male and female names alternately, but we have not had one in Queensland for a while now. There have been dozens of supercell thunderstorms which cause immense damage - and several deaths - in a couple of hours. I don't ever remember so many of these in one season before either. The weather is definitely changing.

Joanne Noragon said...

And red winged blackbirds, the harbingers of spring, are at my feeders. In January! Not to mention crocus bulbs are up. I can only wonder how it will end.

Sue in Suffolk said...

Hope you get to your lunch OK. I saw the weather forecast and those isobars looked rather too close together for comfort!

Dartford Warbler said...

I dread the next storm if he is Henry VIII !
At first I thought that the naming of storms was a bit silly, but now I can see the point if they are going to become harsher and more frequent than they used to be.

The wind has dropped here. I hope you have a more peaceful night too.

Barbara said...

Be safe in all the winter storms.
I don't care if they have names or not, when there is mention of winds with the potential of "structural damage", I take an instant dislike!

jinxxxygirl said...

I have to say Pat i have had alot of noise around here to and it has nothing to do with a storm... Hubs has decided he wants to ad a pantry to our renovated kitchen and has been hard at it with hammering and sawing and banging....at times i could pull my hair out.. Then it was warm enough today to open all the windows... (near 70F) and our neighbor put us in touch with some gentlemen who could ground out some stumps for us...left by fallen trees... I think you know we are surrounded by pine trees here and i cannot begin to describe the wonderful smell of pine that wafted in the windows today...just made me smile ... so even thought the noise of all that grinding made me want to pull my hair out again at least i would have done so with a smile on my face.. Hugs! deb

angryparsnip said...

What a mess. More cold winds and snow.
The weather all over the world does seem to be so awful.
Hope you get to have your lunch out.

cheers, parsnip and thehamish

Cro Magnon said...

It really hasn't been too cold here yet this winter; a minimum of Zero C I think. I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing!

Midlife Roadtripper said...

'The only way I can get any peace is to turn off my hearing aid.'

Always a treat to visit your day.

Gwil W said...

Made me smile too. Don't forget to turn it back on. My mother sometimes 'forgets' or so she says.

The Weaver of Grass said...

Dartford Warbler's comment made me laugh!
Thanks for calling in. No breeze at all this morning but we are battening down the hatches again in anticipation.

Librarian said...

So, Henry is your eighth storm this winter - Henry VIII... I hope this Henry does not prove to be as vicious as his human namesake!
Still relatively mild here at around 10C, but it was very windy yesterday, which made it feel much colder. Some very welcome rain, too.

Heather said...

I find constant gales very tiring even when I'm not out in them. The incessant noise gets on my nerves too. I wonder what all this strange weather means for the rest of the year.
I do hope you manage to meet up with your friends this time.
We actually had a lovely dry and bright day yesterday but are back to dull and damp again today. Wishing you some 'dry and bright' soon so that the farmer can get up to date with all his jobs around the farm.

Tom Stephenson said...

Oh yes, Henry the Eighth. I was wondering how they chose the names until Librarian pointed this out.

A Heron's View said...

Talking about these Winter Storms I see that it was Met Éireann & the Met Office in the UK who instigated this childish exercise of naming storms and together they have announced the list of storm names chosen by the public.
• Henry• Imogen• Jake• Katie• Lawrence• Mary• Nigel• Orla• Phil• Rhonda• Steve• Tegan• Vera• Wilbert.
I note that Quentin has been omitted ?

A Heron's View said...

and Xavier

Simon Douglas Thompson said...

My windows rattling, blatters of rain on the panes, the howl of wind through the trees...they've all kept me awake.