Returned home

It was an interesting drive through rain and flooded roads, listening to the news reports of 175kph winds and closed roads and 2 million houses without electricity. South of Poitiers the autoroute was closed! I considered finding somewhere to stay the night, but the wind was dropping by the time I reached Poitou Charentes: the clouds cleared, the temperature rose, and it became a warm sunny spring day. Actually the roads were very quiet, as people had listened to police instructions to stay indoors, so it was easy to avoid the small lakes and mudslides and pieces of tree, though I was watching the trees by the road in case any showed signs of wobble. At least two people were crushed by trees yesterday. Near home the road through St Ciers was closed, but the top road via St Fort was open.

And there was the house, looking secure. No electricity. I unpacked some stuff and went to see La Concierge du Village and her husband. The power had gone off on Friday, and her centenarian mother is with them this month, so she was rather fraught and worried. As we were talking, their hall light came on, oh joy!

Inexplicably, the water to the garden taps had been left on (though I'm sure someone had turned it off in the autumn) and the pipe had burst. La Concierge had found it but she can't reach the mains taps either (she is even shorter than me!), so she'd had to wait for son mari, and the water carried on pouring out for several hours. That's going to cost, on a meter. When the storm started, the barn window blew open and the cover over it fell down. It hadn't been properly closed. I didn't know it could be opened, but La C thinks Ben-the-builder had opened it. She managed to get it shut and hammered some hookthingies into the wall to hold a plank across to keep it shut. She couldn't see a hammer in the barn so she used another piece of wood. Tough old lady!

The roof seems to be ok, and there is only a little damage to some of the building stuff in the barn. Today the wind is back though...

Watching the news on tv, it seems that further south and in Spain it was ferocious. Here it wasn't as bad as the Great Storm of 1999 (similar to England's Great Storm of 1987); in the bay d'Archeron just south of Bordeaux, it was worse.

I ache all over. It was an even longer drive than usual. Arms are failing as well as legs, so a day mostly in bed is called for, and I shouldn't be typing too much either :/