Buffeted

Colorful pictures, yes, taken last week out in the vineyard right behind our back gate and hedge. Good memories of October. November, so far, est une autre histoire. Even though yesterday was a decent sunny day...

I lay awake most of the night, however, listening to the wind blow and feeling it shake the house, and listening to the clatter of heavy raindrops on the tile roof and skylight windows. Because we are on the high ground above the river valley, our house takes the brunt of the westerly winds that bring in storms off the Atlantic Ocean, 300 kilometers, 175 miles, distant. It didn't help that I had drunk an inhabitual big cup of strong black coffee late yesterday afternoon.

The fact that the vineyard runs due west from our back gate — I took the photo above just inside that gate — for two or three miles means that there are no woods or buildings to block the west wind. And the fact that our house is three stories high, and we sleep on the top floor right under the roof tiles, exaggerates the effects of bad weather.

The weather forecast was so alarming that at about 9:00 p.m. I decided to go down in the rain and put the car in the garage, after having decided to leave it out overnight because I have to go to town this morning. Eighty kph (50 mph) winds were predicted. It's still too dark for me to know whether our trees lost any branches, but at least I know that none fell on the car.

We are still nervous about the roof over the kitchen, which really leaked a lot of water during the rains of late spring, but so far this fall the news is good. The man who repaired the problem seems to know what he's doing. We have asked him to put together an estimate for the cost of repairing the cracked and water-stained kitchen ceiling.

I'm not sure when the work will be done — probably next spring — but our homeowner's insurance is supposed to foot the bill, whenever. More heavy rains and high winds are predicted for tomorrow. We have to go out in the car in the middle of that storm, for a rendez-vous and some shopping in Montrichard.