A windy night (ii)

At first it was exhilarating, made the hairs on your neck stand up and made you want to pull your collar up and pull your  thermal hat down  over your ears. Then, as you trudged on it made you lean into the oncoming gusts and think about how good it would be coming back with

The wind behind you.

Thankfully, it was not raining. As the bushes and trees bowed in homage to the south-westerly gale, I stuck my hands down deeper into my duffle coat pockets and made a mental list of what might need tying down or securing in place before I went to bed.

Now, the cheering lights of the pub were visible, the metal sign groaning a welcome.  Thoughts of food and drink overtook the plans for safety precautions and I was pleased to find an empty table by the fire, most of the customers chatting at the bar. A bottle of wine and a plate of pie and chips later, I felt replete and mellow and started up a conversation with the locals.  They had all had plenty of experience of windy weather and regaled tales of storms, gales and events which had made headline news in the past.  I listened with interest to accounts of  Barry’s barn which had lost its roof in March 2016, the elderly couple whose chimney had plummeted to the ground, narrowly missing their parked car on the drive, back in 2014, and the man who last year, after drinking his way round the five pubs in the town, had stumbled down the canal path to his houseboat, only to found it gone. He sobered up when, after searching most of the night, the police informed him that it had run aground six miles down the canal.

Did I or didn’t I remember to double knot the mooring rope?

Jean Taylor