Twosday – a Tale of Two Tiles

~ tidalscribe.com

Nothing much happens on Tuesdays, except perhaps a special date. Today is 22-2-22, but if I don’t hurry up and post this it will be Wednesday, except in the Americas where it will still be Tuesday, but written 2-22-22.

 The previous few days were more eventful as we had three storms in a row. Since the Met Office started naming storms we seem to have them more often, the aim being to make us take them seriously. On Thursday we were still thinking ‘not a nuther storm coming, up to E already, Eunice…’

But soon we were receiving RED warnings! Yes, just when you thought it was safe to go out again after Covid / chemotherapy / knee operation / kidnap by aliens – delete as appropriate, we were being instructed to stay home again.

‘Yellow, amber and even the most severe red warnings are in place for vast swathes of the United Kingdom – from Inverness to the Isle of Wight – for Friday.’

Our local council announced that almost everything would be closed on Friday. Team H deferred their long weekend visit, just like lockdown again, then cancelled as we heard that Eunice was to be followed by Storm Franklin and perhaps Gladys…

Friday dawned fair…

Friends and families warned each other ( well me ) not to go out to see the sea. I thought I would pop out to the recycling bin, but the front door nearly blew off. The front and side of our house takes the brunt of the prevailing south westerly and a record wind speed of 122 miles per hour was recorded on the Isle of Wight, as the wind wended its way to our house.

Unless you live in solitary splendour in the countryside you are probably very close or joined to your neighbours.  It was our neighbour who alerted us to tiles fallen off our roof, just missing their car. Only two tiles lost and one loose, but up high…

A good while ago it was the neighbours the other side who had major building work done to their house with the scaffolding in our driveway. The builders inadvertently broke one of our tiles, but how lucky was that because they fixed it and had four tiles left over and left them with us. Even luckier, considering I always forget where I put everything, I remembered where the spare tiles were hidden in the potting shed.

My son planned to fix the roof before Eunice took unfair advantage of the weak spot. I didn’t think anyone should be doing anything with ladders. My daughter-in-law was dispatched to Wickes to buy a hook attachment for the ladder and some spongy glue stuff. I didn’t think anyone should be going out.

Luckily we have the ‘right sort of roof’ for the proposed action and with careful checking of wind speeds, yet another thing you can do on the internet and the use of two ladders, the roof was repaired later in the day. We did not have to join the queues of home owners waiting for builders and roofers.

We had of course got off lightly. People had four hundred year old oak trees falling on their house and homes were flooded. Sadly the red warnings were justified as several people were killed by toppling trees.

35 thoughts on “Twosday – a Tale of Two Tiles”

  3. Oh no! And I thought the high wind storms here in New Mexico, USA were bad. We rarely get winds over 100 miles per hour.

    So good that your door did not blow off. I had that happen to our back storm door a few months ago. I opened it and the wind ripped it out of my hands. Thankfully, the inner back door is still solid.

    I hope the remainder of your Twosday was Terrific. I don’t know why most people here in the states write their dates with the month first, then the day. To me, it only makes sense to put the day first, then the month, and finally the year, as you do: 22-2-22

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    1. Hello Linda, that must have been quite an experience and you actually have storm doors!
      I don’t think many of us realised the date was written the other way round over your side until we were all on computers. It can be confusing!

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      1. I’m stuck with my sequel, as it happens, since my book club, whilst liking The Conways at Earthsend very much, felt that the weather conditions were probably not severe enough for what will be! But the ‘African’ wars referred to in The Conways were the equivalent of WW3, fought over water and energy and then resolved by a pact [which the African nations then reneged on].

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  7. My goodness! Never a dull moment! I’m glad you are doing well after all the storms! Here in New England (Massachusetts), we seem to be having a storm every Friday! Now there is another one – you guessed it – this coming Friday! 🙂 Take good care, Janet!

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  10. Those adhesives certainly have interesting slogans! I’m glad your roof was fixable, and that you had those tiles. Here we’re experiencing below freezing temperatures and strong winds. Not good when plants are starting to grow, and I worry about the birds. We don’t have officially named storms here.

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  12. Thank goodness your son was able to fix the roof in between storms. We put a new roof on our house about eight years ago. Evey big storm was ripping shingles off the old roof. I know I’ve never been in 120 mph winds, and we used to live in the part of the country known as “Tornado Alley.”

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  15. The first two big storms didn’t affect us too much in Beetley. But Franklin came from the right direction to rip up a lot of trees, and close roads locally. Luckily, we avoided the flooding, and our two huge Oak trees stood up to the gusts. Glad your son was able to fix the roof for you.
    Best wishes, Pete.

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