A Bit of a Breeze

I've said before in this blog that you really have to experience Skye weather in order to understand it. It's all very well seeing weather forecasts in which forecasters talk glibly about 100 mile per hour winds, and what they poetically term 'wintry showers', but until you are here and living through a 'Skye Breeze', you really cannot know what the forecasters are talking about.

In the last few days, we have had a 'Skye Breeze' - in fact, it was a full-on 'Hoolie'. (This is a local expression used to describe weather that instantly soaks you to the skin and blows you off your feet, both at the same time). Huddled down inside your home, with the wind roaring outside and the hail hammering against the window, you can feel quite calm, though you do imagine the havoc that is being wrought outside. Then the power fails. No worries - there are candles at the ready, and most homes have some kind of back-up for heating and cooking. On this occasion, the mains water went off as well, and was off for a full day. But you cope.

It is surprising how well you can sleep with all the commotion of a storm going on outside. In the morning, everything looks much the same outside. A neighbour who had unwisely erected a wooden fence will now have to re-erect it (mostly, we have wire fences here, which are storm-proof) and I found the wheelie bins quite easily, and thankfully, they hadn't emptied themselves. A leg from our plastic garden table was half way down our drive. I later found another table leg in the road, and have now spotted the table top in a nearby field. The fourth leg remains unaccounted for.

There aren't many large trees in the area - no surprises really - so there is seldom tree-damage, though I later discovered a large branch had been shed by one of our Roskhill Barn trees. As for buildings - they are built to withstand such weather. Roofs occasionally lose a tile, but major damage is extremely rare.

Roskhill trees shed a branch - it's not easy to see where it's come from though!