A bit breezy last night..

Friday 4th February 2011
I got up this morning and the gale was still blowing like the clappers but much better than last night. According to Radio Orkney the wind got up to 125mph at Evie.
It was not so bad here, I think it was about 100mph but 100mph is still a fair bit breezy.
Fortunately I had already tidied everything that I thought may take flight so we did not suffer much damage. The hen house blew over but was not damaged, the bird table blew down and rather surprisingly, a cast iron bench in the garden blew over. The bench was outside the walled part of the garden though so was fairly exposed to the wind which was south west so blowing straight at it.

I was told at the village shop that somebody down the village lost a greenhouse. This means lost, not just blown down. The greenhouse has disappeared leaving only some bits of broken glass.

We are lucky compared to some though. Some large agricultural sheds have blown down and partially built houses in South Ronaldsay, Finstown and Tankerness have been flattened. One of Duncan's mates has a house being built in Tankerness close to our land. It had the windows in and the roof on but they had not fitted any bracing across the rooms inside. The walls spread in the wind and the complete roof fell in crushing the walls as it fell. Fortunately nobody was in the building but the house is a write off. I just hope he was insured.

Needless to say, the barriers were closed this morningas they reckoned that the wind was still force 12 which I think is hurricane force although it did not seem that bad to me. The wind fell away extremely quickly though and by dinner time it was just a bit breezy. The weather here always changes fast but it is difficult to believe that it could change so much in such a short time.

The first of our chicks hatched today ( If they were horses I would have to name them storm and hurricane or something like that but they are only chickens so it is OK) These are two of the 6 Light Sussex eggs that Pam got from South Ronaldsay.Not a very good hatch rate especially as they had not travelled far. At least even though there are only two of them they are good and healthy and they managed to get out of their shells with no help. This must mean that the incubator is working properly. I had been thinking that the temperature may not be correct and I was mis-trusting the thermometer but all must be OK.

In the evening we had a dinner organised by the dog training group at the British legion in Kirkwall. I was not looking forward to it as I only know the people from Molly's class and Pam knows nobody. It turned out to be a really good evening though. When I returned from having a crafty ciggy outside, Pam was talking to a couple from Rendall. The bloke, Colin, had been in the police in Orkney, Shetland and Inverness and now worked for the Orkney housing association. He has 2 Fergie T20 tractors and was generally interesting. Colin's wife Wendy was into crafts so Pam and her got on like a house on fire and were swapping phone numbers and addresses.
I had been thinking that we would leave as early as was decent at about 10:30 and was a bit worried about the barriers as high tide was at about 11PM. As it happened we were about the last to leave at about 12:30 so the tide was on it's way down and we just got a bit of spray on the car crossing over.