I should know better

Just recovering from the Great Storm here, and hoping there is no damage, although I will need daylight to confirm that. However, the roof is still there, if still leaky, and I don`t seem to have any trees down.

A great public fuss was made about this storm, and all the schools were closed, which was a first, and pissed off a lot of parents.

I had to go out in it for a doctor`s appointment, and struggled against the wind over a flooded road. We had a long chat about the inadequacies of the local hospital, which only seems to be efficient in spreading the Winter Vomiting Virus like a black miasma over the local area several times a year. I had a flu injection.

I then decided, in the face of a rising gale to cut things short and get on home, with a brief call to the local Ladies convenience....where I was called on by the attendant to hurry, as she was locking up. At half past eleven in the morning?

Yes, the council had phoned, and because of the gale they were locking up all the public toilets.

Well, of course. What other response could there be to an extreme weather event?

I relayed all this to the taxi driver. "All I need," he said: "drive in this all day and not even a Jimmy Riddle!"

Neither of us was at all surprised at the council`s reaction. We had both lived with the said council`s warped and possibly alien logic for years. (I have often suspected that at the heart of its policy making procedures is a small green person on loan from Area 51)

Home, and a wait for the usual result of a storm here - the power cut. Looked out the candles, had the emergency light charged, a flask ready....

But amazingly it didn`t happen. Our power comes in on overhead lines, and usually, especially in winter, a robin`s fart is enough to put it off.

So all in all, I have probably been lucky.

The dogs, mostly confined, with occasional forays into the teeth of the gale, did not share this view at all.