Storm Ciara

As forecast, Storm Ciara blew in during the early hours of Sunday morning. We awoke to the rain lashing against the windows and gale force winds. Unfortunately, even in this sort of weather, dogs still need to be taken outdoors to do their necessaries. Mick drew the short straw, as he always does when I don't want to venture out, so he waited until there seemed to be a bit of a break in the weather and then made a dash for it. They must have been out just a matter of minutes when the sky, once again, darkened and without warning the worst weather of the day materialised. The downpour was as heavy as any I've ever seen, and to make matters worse, the rain was coming down horizontally as it was caught by the wind. Archie had his hoodie on, but Mick refuses to walk him with the hood up so his body was kept nice and dry but just look at those ears. He felt very sorry for himself for the rest of the day.

Mick fared much worse, he was soaked to the skin, literally. Every bit of clothing was drenched and was put straight into the washing machine, even his pants and socks.

The storm continued throughout Sunday and it was still raging when we woke on Monday morning, though it settled down a little as the day wore on. There was still plenty of rain about but the wind started to abate. I thought the storm was blowing itself out but that wasn't to be, it's back with a vengeance today, one pane had already been blown out of the greenhouse on Sunday but there were another four panes strewn around the garden when we got up this morning. Luckily, it's just polycarbonate and not glass so it will just clip back in once the wind's died down.

It's still very windy, but we seem to be getting all sorts of weather today, sunshine, rain and even swirling flurries of snow. Let's hope it settles down soon as other parts of the country are having it much worse than us with flooding and wind damage. For now, I'm hunkering down indoors and letting the storm pass.