Windfalls

Wednesday afternoon, Joe in work in Limerick and the storm hit. Next time we'll take proper notice of orange/red weather warnings from Met Éireann. I had a call from Joe in the midst of it all when the eucalyptus trees were trying to touch their tips to the ground. 'I'm stuck the other side of Killaloe. Trees down. I'm on Séamie's phone.' Ah yes. Joe's phone was safe in its usual place on the counter in the kitchen.
'Don't go out,' he said. 'It's wild out here.' Normally this wouldn't have mattered but I was due to teach flute in the Community College in Scarriff. 'Cancel your classes,' said Joe. Looking at the trees still in supplication outside, I could see he was probably right. I went to my phone on the kitchen windowsill as a text came in. Electricity out in Scarriff. No lights in the classroom. Cancel the classes.

A while later Joe phoned again. 'Still here. They're working on the trees. No other way to get home - other lads have tried it. Trees down everywhere. Have to go, I'm on someone else's phone.'

I filled containers with water. The lights were flickering, I was expecting a power cut and that would mean the pump on our deep well would stop working.

When the wind abated slightly I thought I'd better go out with the loppers and clear any fallen branches/bits of debris for when he did manage to get back. All well til I turned the corner at Ryan's Bridge and then

Two big fir trees. Loppers not much use here. I headed up the other way - we have two ways in - and cut back a fallen gorse bush. He should be OK now.

It took him 2 3/4 hours to get home instead of the usual one. Students at the university were warned not to leave. Madness. Our broadband was down but we still had electricity. Amazing.

Next morning out with the chainsaw.

And ta dahh!

We got off lightly. The electricity people have done a lot of work on the infrastructure round us. We complained when they turned off the electricity for the day a few times over the last couple of years, but we're grateful now.

I'm doing this while we have a broadband onage - we're promised on and off outages for the next 48 hours.

Our storms have started having names. This one was Darwin. Welcome to a new world.