Monday, 26 December 2016

A Brisk Christmas

The main feature of Christmas was the weather, with gusts up to gale force over most of the holiday accompanied by thunder, lightning, hail, sleet and moments of slushy snow. Not that any of this bothered those members of the family who took their normal Christmas swim in the bay below our house.

We were very proud of the Christmas Eve kale, which was fresh from our garden and evidently organic, though the carefully cooked wildlife did worry the vegan.

If Christmas Day is a time of overindulgence on good wine and food - we enjoyed a Suffolk goose - Boxing Day is a time for walking it off, so with the power knocked out from breakfast time onwards and Storm Conor at its closest we took ourselves to Bay MacNeil to watch the waves break at the lighthouse....

....and the dirty spume blowing around in Bay MacNeil itself. It was painful work: forty-mile an hour hail isn't much fun, and clambering over the rocks to get a good shot was worryingly slippery.

The weather began to show signs of clearing as we set off home, with watery sunshine picking out the colours in the beach and cliff....

....and in the rollers coming in to the shore.

The gulls seem to enjoy the challenge of a good gale and somehow keep flying while being pelted with hail.

The power came on briefly around lunch time and then died again, so we read by candle light as the day faded, the power finally coming back on around four.

Our thanks, as always, to the engineers from Scottish and Southern Energy for their efforts in pretty appalling weather, and to the switchboard operators who are unfailingly helpful and cheerful.

Many thanks to Hebe & Lizzie for some of the pictures.

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