Well, it’s the morning after the night before and we’re all still here in one piece, the house is still in one piece too, but it’s been one of the wildest nights on the prom in living memory.

This morning we have a run of the mill stormy day, but this is our story of yesterday.

The morning was fine, but we knew it was the calm before the storm.

(This was taken from across the bay some time before high tide – our house is hidden by the wave.)

3.30pm – Looking out of my office wondow, began to notice the wind through the trees increasing, and I knew that would just be the start.

4.15pm – One of my collegues had the radio on in the workshop, and he told me the the prmenade was closing at six – a full two hours before high tide – and that there were a couple of trees down in the road between here and town. I worked out the possibilities for getting home via the back roads.

5.00pm – I set out and the roads were clear but the road around the harbour was already closed – I wouldn’t have used it any way in such a wind – and I joined the queue to get home around the back of town. Progress was slow but steady. When we weren’t moving the wind shook the car, which was unnerving.

5.30pm – I arrived in the car park, but the wind on the short walk home was the strongest I had ever been out in. I borrowed a trick from Briar – deep breath, head down, and forward – but I was genuinely worried that I would lose my footing. I didn’t, but I was more scared than I’ve been in a storm before.

6.00pm – We watched the news headlines – which didn’t tell us anything we didn’t know. We could hear the wind, we could hear the rain, waves were coming right up, and the water level in the garden was slowly rising. But there was nothing more we could do, and so we settled down to eat .

6.45pm – We were all lined up on the sofa, waiting for the local weather forecast. And then the lights went out. Looking out of the window we could see that our terrace and the next were in darkness, but there was light further along the road. We lit candles, and we were very thankful to have a gas aga. Briar assumed that it was bedtime, and curled up to sleep on a cushion.

7.00pm – We heard a drip, and we realised that water was coming in through the frame of the downstairs bay window. After a short period of panic I deployed the preserving pan and the lid of Briar’s toy box to catch the drips. And then we realised we had a similar problem in the porch, We lined the floor with old sheets and towels, but at that point we were really worried, because we were still a way from high tide.

7.15pm – I checked the upstairs bay window, and that was fine, so I came downstairs and watched the water pouring off the gutters.

7.30pm – We realised that the storm was easing. Just a little, but at that stage a little was enough. It was still wild, but the gutters weren’t overflowing and the dripping had stopped.

8.00pm – I-Spy by candlelight.

8.30pm – The tide was dropping and though it was still wild we were relieved that we had passed what might have been crisis point.

8.45pm – I realised that without my modem I had no broadband, and I also realised that I should have brought a Kindle with a light.But we had a round of naming songs with questions for titles, songs with instructions for titles, songs about boats ….

9.30pm – The lights came on. And then they went off again.

10.15pm – We decided to settle down for the night, because we knew we could be woken early before the next high tide in the morning.

10.30pm – The light came back, and it stayed back. Hooray for Western Power!

And then we slept …..

I’m at work now, I’m hoping for some light to read by tonight, and then we’ll get the house straight and get ready for the next round of storms that we’ve been promised.