It is absolutely foul outside, much worse than St Jude’s storm last week, well it is worse for us; St Jude was pretty beastly to a lot of people, and tragically was responsible for four people’s deaths.
We face directly west and there is nothing between us and the sea except some low-lying pastures and meadows and a river estuary. The wind is literally howling, and buffeting the house so the windows shake, flinging the rain against the glass. There are rattles and noises, and a tremendous racket out there, trees whipping backwards and forwards, leaves, twigs and branches torn off and flung about. I’m reminded of Macbeth; here is what Lennox says to Macbeth as they head towards the king’s chamber with MacDuff:
The night has been unruly: where we lay,
Our chimneys were blown down; and, as they say,
Lamentings heard i’ the air; strange screams of death,
And prophesying with accents terrible
Of dire combustion and confused events
New hatch’d to the woeful time: the obscure bird
Clamour’d the livelong night: some say, the earth
Was feverous and did shake.
Lois Elsden 