Winter has arrived...

OMG what a storm last night - we had it all, gale force winds, driving rain, hail, thunder and lightning - and fingers firmly crossed that our flood defences would be working because John has done everything he can possibly do to prevent water coming in under the front door...  time would tell!!  We were so glad that it was a day when we would normally be at home and didn't have to go anywhere.

We ventured out of the warmth of our bed and checked the conservatory - RESULT no water at the front door and the water butt was coping with the rain gushing off of the roof.  All the cats were in which was good and the fire could be resurrected from last night so we just decided to batten down the hatches and have a duvet day at home.

We were just getting ourselves organised when the bloody power went - I don't know why I was surprised as this always happens when we have an electrical storm and we were having one hell of an electrical storm.  It was raining so hard that we decided to wait a little before getting the generator out.  It is at times like these I am glad I like to have plenty of candles dotted around the house!  We were ok without the generator for a while as the kettle was being heated on the wood-burner and we had enough to keep ourselves occupied.  In the end it was only off for a relatively short time although it came back on and then went off again but only momentarily.

The cats are more than happy to have us at home and to have the fire lit - apart from having to go out for a call of nature all four of them stayed around - when they did go out we had to be ready with a towel because they came back soaking.  Popsy has got used to this routine and now actively jumps up onto my craft box and waits to be dried.

It is a bit strange being in ALL day and there is only so much television I can watch in one go so for a little while I did a bit of craft - I had discovered some candles which used to be in the conservatory but which were now looking a bit worse for wear so I decided to pretty them up so that they could be out on show and used if we had another power cut.

John eventually managed to get me to chose a film which we both thought we would enjoy - the 2016 remake of Ben Hur.  Watching it I realise I never watched the Charlton Heston version save for the chariot racing scene because none of the rest of the film was familiar.  It was entertaining and passed away an hour or so - I hadn't realised that so many of the actors in the film were British - I had expected it to be all-American.


A day in together watching a film with something bubbling away on the stove and all four cats accounted for is John's idea of heaven and I have to say it was nice - with the weather as it was there was nothing for it but to stay put and enjoy!

We could never have known when the sun went over the yard arm today - we never saw the sun all day and just when we thought the storms had dome to an end we heard the familiar sound of rain on the conservatory roof still at least I wouldn't have to do any watering but looking at the garden I will have a shed load of tidying up to do when things have dried up!

Sean came round this evening braving the trip from 12b to 10b waiting for a break in the weather before running down!  I had prepared a Thai chicken curry for supper and then a chilli pineapple and ginger crumble for afters - it all seemed to go down very well with a little bottle of Agios and the warmth of the log fire - a nice end to a pretty miserable day.