Magic!

A fitful night's sleep, mainly awake with throbbing muscles, a shower at 4 am and then a 'no go' decision (from bed) at 7. Then of course I fell asleep. With no trains north of Newcastle, WX and L had managed to fly back to London at 7 am.

Not going to Balmaha meant a day watching the storm, which turned out, as anticipated, not nearly as bad as forecast. 

I know it's a balance, and my experience of when decisions were made to close schools in winter bears that out, but I think the system of named storms and weather warnings has increased the tendency to be risk averse. Though by telling everyone to stay in it does reduce the impact on stretched public services. 

But it wisnae that bad. Some squally showers, interspersed with sunshine and some strong winds and gusts but nothing like the Great Storm of 1968 or, what I measure everything by, Tempete Klaus in 2009 with hours of sustained winds of 100 mph and gusts up to 120 mph followed by no power for 2 days and no water for one. That was a storm, a cyclone, I thought our roof was coming off. But here, even on top of a hill, a couple of pots blew over and that was about it. Floris only delivered gusts up to 82 mph, further north than here. But Festival events were cancelled including for the first time ever, the Tattoo, though by 9 pm it was dry and pretty much back to normal. 

We went out. First a Free Fringe magic show at CC Bloom's which the girls loved. Then lunch at ESF followed by a hurl on the bus up to the Pleasance for the Lord of the Rings show, but it was cancelled and the Courtyard shut, till evening. So back home on the bus. 

There were then various activities: sleeping (parents), looking out stuff, sewing (me, but a one square error), listening to 'music' and watching the cherry tree sway. #2 son, who had the car to take his stuff home (but he forgot his clubs) came up for dinner with supplies from Lidl. After that there was rhythmic gymnastics from 2017 for Mei Mei but I left them all watching a Godzilla movie.

And there was sad news, my neighbour, V, died this evening. Don't know how old she was, but much younger than me.