First Gale in the New House

The shipping forecast at 5am this morning alerted me to gales all around this little emerald isle and added, "including south Iceland." So I knew there would be no reprieve from wind and probably rain--both horizontal and vertical as the day wore on.

Unlike the unfortunate bunch working on an archaeological dig, I was inside with hot coffee and snacks and friends all doing crafts at Castlehill. I could ignore the rain and the wind until I had to make the trek from there to home.

The wind nearly bowled me over on the way to my car, but at least there was no serious rain--a timid Scottish mist until I was safely home and tucked up with a cat on my lap. The wind was howling, but in this new house, I need to learn the sounds of a gale--what is normal for an upstart house. The howl of the wind in the sun room gets into the realm of the pitch of a fluorescent light going bad or a dentist's drill in the bad old days before ultrasonics. It is loud enough that the music on the radio loses the contest for my attention.

The cats look to me for reassurance. Even in their days on the farm before they were house trained, they did not like wind. Solomon, when still a bundle of fluff, curled quaking into my arms on the night of the first big storm of his life. Sheba probably sheltered in the barn because there is special baffling there because cattle like lots of fresh air but they don't like the noise of the wind either.

The sun room is not the place to be when there is no sun, so the cats and I move into the kitchen, comparatively snug, but the door from the kitchen to the garage is almost impossible to open with the wind coming through the chinks in the garage overhead doors.

The good news is that nothing appears to be linking as the wind drives rain into the corners of the house. In my old house I would have to be watching the drain in the back close to make sure that the water did not come into the house and the leak in the roof that never did get fixed despite repeated attempts is probably leaking now.

Even without leaks or chills running through the house, the wind-driven rain is too loud to be ignored. It makes concentrating more difficult. I am going to retreat to bed with my knitting needles and teh radio and hope that by tomorrow the wind will have blown itself out.