An episode cévenol survived

If you follow me on Facebook, you will see the happy snaps of the storm in progress.  (That’s half a dining table you can see out there.  One broken chair and a decapitated bird feeder.)

Two days later it’s just raining very hard. But hah, that’s nothing for us!  Rain I can take. But with 85km per hour blasts of driving wind at the same time.  Well, that’s tahsome in the extreme.

I’ve measured over 5 inches or rain (almost 130mm) and am in for tea in between branch collecting. And leaf picking. And I suspect I will need to empty the rain gauge again before the day is out. It looks set to overflow.

Luckily most of the potager leaves remained intact.  So bravo for that.  But the courtyard mulberry leaves – great big dinner plate sized beasties and bright yellow – are everywhere.

And I mean everywhere. I’ll go out in a bit and take pictures.

But right now my very wet jeans are steaming quietly in front of the fire.

As is Artur. For all of you with cat anxiety during storms here is how the little critter survived the hardship of an episode cévenol.

And yes that is me reflected in the glass of the fireplace. It is roaring inside, honest.

We did lose power for two hours late yesterday afternoon: I was all poised with candles and lamps. But I didn’t really relish the idea of going to bed so utterly early as it was dark, and then listening to the house shaking for a second night.

But then in the Count Your Blessings mantra I am trying to adopt in this difficult year, the power came back. Hurrah.  And is still mostly on.

But the village has lost their power and it still isn’t connected.  Our favourite builder Bebère came over just now to discuss some winter projects. And quite marvelled when I blithely turned on the kitchen light to show him a rather impressive drip. (Redundant chimney blocked off, but still flowing merrily with the storm.)

So we aren’t over the storm yet. And there is more to come on Thursday. But for now I’m just revelling in the silence. Listening to pelting rain rather than pelting branches against the walls of the house.

And who knows? Maybe we can get back to a bit of this later in the week.

And this.

And this.