Meccano in reverse

I had all good intentions of getting to work this morning, I really did.

Beloved was surprised in her sleepiness as I set off just after six this morning, but as I pointed out, we weren’t being told not to travel. Even the local travel reports were fairly quiet as I drove in. However by the time I got halfway the wind was building, and the floods getting deeper. So I thought discretion the better part of valour so I turned round and headed back home. Good thing I did, in the intervening period some branches had blown down and the floods getting deeper. By the time I got home travel reports were telling of trees blown down on the route I would have taken had I continued to work.

Some time this morning, the Motorway was closed because of a car hit by a tree, the Forth Bridge was closed, and the Met Office had issued a red alert.

So, you will imagine I have been warm and comfortable working from home. Not so.

As light broke beloved shouted from the kitchen that the shed was lifting in the wind. Now, the shed is made from metal, not wood, and the wind had lifted one side. As a consequence beloved and I were out in the garden for the best part of half an hour simply hanging on to the shed to stop it blowing away. It really was that likely, and a whole shed being wind tossed around gardens and houses simply did not bear thinking about. However we couldn’t just try to hang on to it all the time. So we had to try to dismantle it, with razor-sharp edges flapping, with at least one of us trying to hold it down at the same time. It took the best part of two hours, but now it is safely stored, in pieces under the decking, and the contents rescued into the conservatory.

Here is a picture taken by beloved toward the end of our efforts.

Now, I can sit in the warm, and work again.

I am glad I turned back this morning, glad that I avoided the closed roads, but most of all glad that we were both at  home to deal with the shed, neither of us could have done anything alone, other than helplessly watch it destroy itself and anything in it’s path.

One final word, if you think I am being melodramatic…. you weren’t there