Date   : Thu, 15 Dec 2011 23:27:31
From   : heyrick.beebsoc@... (Rick Murray)
Subject: [BeebSoc] Bloody hell!

Hey Mick,

You know that big pine tree in between the garden and the house, next to 
the, er, rock thing? Well, it is now lying across the driveway having 
missed the house by *inches*. Big gust of wind that mom can time exactly 
(two minutes before the night time shipping forecast, so I'm guessing 
1:53 CET?). So I spend break on the phone calming her down as you can 
imagine you might.

I'll take some piccies tomorrow for blog, but they'll have less impact 
as we got to work cutting a path (spans the driveway, went right up to 
the wall of the house) so we can get by. Sodding pine, so getting a saw 
through it isn't easy (sappy resin stuff grabs at the saw). God knows 
what we'll do for the more major parts, mom doesn't trust me with a 
chainsaw. I tried to tell her that once upon a time blowing up stuff was 
my forte, but she still won't go for me and sharp objects. Pffft!

Anyway. This nonsense started just after 9am, blew through the night, 
calmed down a bit after five so we could get to work on the tree. But 
rain stopped play, horizontal rain that managed to penetrate... let's 
see, a coat and a thermal jacket, a jumper, and two T-shirts... in under 
twenty seconds. The coat is on the electric radiator right now.

Then it went dead calm for about half an hour, but I can hear the wind 
picking up. Not a hurricane, as, as far as I know, the wind is still 
coming from west-south-west. But... Isn't it done already?!?

On the utilities front, the Internet has stayed up. Speedtest on the 
phone reckons 0.7mbit up (I should get 2) and 0.42mbit down (should be 
256k, about 0.26). I'll do a test with the Orange utility later (can't 
run email/browser while doing that) because the phone sometimes doesn't 
go as fast as it ought to. For a while during the nasty period, the 
electricity dipped out regularly, but it never completely went. Now it 
is up and seems to be stable. Well, for *now*.
There's a pole with switch/transformer mechanism on top that is about a 
mile away and the top of the switching thingy is just this big blue glow.

According to the paper, it seems to have picked up strength over land, 
hitting gusts of 110kph over the flat land along the coast, but peaking 
as high as 125kph in an inland d?partement which is... um... let's just 
say it would be a pleasant summer afternoon's stroll to cross the fields 
and reach the corner. So I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't get gusts 
damn near that.

Cats are okay. Looked around by torchlight, nothing else *seems* to be a 
problem. Fingers crossed.

Mom never liked that tree, said it blocked out all the sun from the 
front of the house. This summer she wanted to get a guy in to tame it, 
but we didn't have cash free for something like that. Now? It has 
snapped at the base. Like a giant matchstick. I told her to be careful 
what she wishes for next.

I'll look damned weird, though. I used to sit under it's shade in the 
summer. Now there'll be, like, *sunlight* in my window. Arrrgh! I'm 
melting! I'm melt.... wait, wasn't that the wicked witch of the west?


Anyway, cuppa and cake, eyeball news, then hit the sack. And Merry 
Bloody Birthday to Me. You know, I think I ought to chop off a piece and 
use it as this year's Christmas tree...

<yawn>


Best wishes,

Rick.