Thur, Jan 18

Spoke too soon yesterday. It was pretty eventful today, and by the time Paul and Dawn had finished their dinner they both had splitting headaches. It started around lunch time. Dawn called Paul as usual to hear the news that another brick had fallen in the high winds that everyone in the UK and Europe were experiencing. Like the one that fell on Boxing Day, this one hit the kitchen roof and smashed through one of the tiles. Little did they know that an hour later over a dozen would follow. One by one they bounced off the main roof into the kitchen roof, smashing more tiles as they came to a standstill.

Paul contacted a roofer who said they would come out immediately and despite wind gusts up to 70mph would make the chimney safe. This proved an impossibility as the wind was almost blowing both the ladder and the roofer over our tall hedge. Even worse, one of the chimney pots then came rolling down the roof towards the roofer. One of Paul's angels must have been on hand as it rolled straight to the roofer and he caught it. It could have knocked him off the top of the ladder, or bounced THROUGH the kitchen roof. By this point, most of the loose bricks had come down, and the wind was beginning to subside. The roofer told Paul he would be back in the morning to make the chimney safe and replace the broken roof tiles. Oh yea, another piece of our fence got blown down, too.

The fun wasn't over there. While Paul was trying to get in touch with the insurance company, Dawn called to say that there were no trains running, and she wouldn't be able to make it home. So Paul dropped everything and drove to Southgate underground station (luckily the tubes were still running). The journey took him an hour. That was a piece of cake, though. After picking Dawn up, it took them two hours to make it home again.

So now you can see why they both had headaches!