Just been listening to the weather forecast for our part of France.

Apparently, the whole of South West France is on "Orange Alert" (the 2nd highest) for gale force winds and heavy rain tonight from around 4am to 10am Saturday.

Winds of up to 130kmph are forecast for us and closer to the Pyrenees, up to 150kmph. accompanied by heavy rain.

As the ground is already waterlogged, I can see some flooding in the region.

It looks like "batten down the hatches" tonight.  They say there's a strong possibility of damage to  tele-communications, electric supplies, falling trees and property damage.  Not often they issue warnings like that. :roll::roll::roll::roll:

sounds nasty mate,hope you get away with it!!!
lol::cool:

Have a bottle or two of wine tonight, and all will be fine, :cheers how did the hair cut go :pathead

[user=285]Alan[/user] wrote:

Have a bottle or two of wine tonight, and all will be fine, :cheers how did the hair cut go :pathead

Why should tonight be any different from the others Alan ?  got to do our bit for the hard pressed French wine producers !! :roll::roll::roll:

Re the hair cut - didn't you notice the difference   The third one on the left is 3mm shorter    I always ask for a discount but they never cough up  - cost me 11 quid :shock::shock::shock::shock:    In UK, at "Jim's Barbers Shop " (an ex Army barber) it was short back and sides and polish the top for £1 (including "something for the weekend Sir? " :roll::roll:)  Liz suggests I should have a rabbit painted on the top so that, from a distance, it would look like a hare !!!!

Anyway, I'm sure the hat will now fit - even if it looks like Sol's pixie hat !!!

She is very supportive then Peter ?

Liz suggests I should have a rabbit painted on the top so that, from a distance, it would look like a hare !!!!

Sounds like time to bolt everything to the ground and sink back with a bottle or few of your favourite grape juice.  There's nothing we can do about the weather outside but we can do the best possible to minimise its effect upon our property and ourselves.

I still clearly remember the Great Storm of October 1987.  BBC "weather man" Michael Fish announced that despite the concern some people had already expressed that there was not a hurricane coming and there was no need to worry.

At around 3am it hit us.  

The rest, as they say, is history.

Hopefully nothing will go bad,
Is it just me or sometimes when there is a big storm warning i get excited.. Maybe i just like storms.
Anyway stay safe.

Here's hoping it passes you by, Petermac.

 Mike

Here in the south east of Spain it's a beautiful day, clear skies, sunshine and about 18C but the wind is howling through the place. Our Sat TV has gone off so goodness knows what's happened to the dish, and I'm not stepping outside to find out. It's a heads down day today methinks.

Sounds ok to me bob . i have just watched the news showing storms in france ,just as petermac commented on last night . he is not on here so far today ,could be a bit of drama where he lives .expect he will tell us about it when he can ,hope its not caused any damage to his home.

:hmm

Petermac's location is right in the path of what are currently reported to be winds exceeding 175kmh (108mph) from BBC news reports.

We can only hope he's tucked in there tight and stays safe and sound until it blows over.

Reports speak of one million homes without power and very severe weather.

Bob sounds like he is copping the edge of the same weather as well as he reported fierce winds earlier and is close enough to be under the influence of the same storm system.

The weather had certainly been atrocious.  Let's hope it's only a power cut that's hit Petermac.

If he is without power he will not be that concerned untill the wine cellar stocks begin to run low.

cheers Brian

Just had a 15 minute power cut here in Alicante so something got snaffued somewhere. Also 4 children killed up in Barcelona.

4  children that is a tragedy,hope it all passes soon .
:shock::sad::sad::sad::cool:

[user=52]henryparrot[/user] wrote:

If he is without power he will not be that concerned untill the wine cellar stocks begin to run low.

 From what I understand that could be a very long time ;-)

That's terrible news from Barcelona, Bob.

We sometimes grumble loudly at the UK weather, but happily for us, the real excesses often pass us by (although not always). I hope Petermac is OK and Bob too. At times like this we realise how powerful a force nature is :exclam:exclam

Back in 1987 I had only just joined the railway straight from school and I remember it being a bit blowy on the night of the hurricane but did not think anything of it.

Waking up the next morning we had no electric but I got on my pedal cycle as normal and cycled from Chiddingfold to Witley station, avoiding the odd tree that had gone scat.

When I got to the station there were trees down everywhere.  Brian who worked there had obviously not got to work so I hung around trying to shift some trees without much success.  I cycled home again to get a saw and then cycled back and started clearing what I could with it, mainly small branches etc and managed to get the various footpaths clear after a few hours.

About lunch time a Class 73 appeared around the bend moving at walking pace and it stopped at the large tree that was blocking the track and a gang of five men got out and started attacking it with a chain saw.  It made my efforts with the saw look pretty pathetic!

I joined them and we continued working along to Haslemere, stopping at every tree.  The normally five minute journey took about four hours!  At one point the tree we had to remove was overhanging a signal and we had to chain it to the class 73, set the loco in reverse pulling it clear of the signal and then start chainsawing it.  It went like a broken match stick at with hindsight we were lucky that nobody was injured as it sprang apart!

We carried on down the line to Liphook and by this time it was about 9pm and we had been working for over 14 hours.  A Class 33 had joined us on the adjacent line with fresh guys and we were sent back again with me being dropped off at Witley on the way back.  I remember cycling home in the dark with no lights and just collapsing into bed…

Somewhere if I can find them I have some pictures that we took that day.  It took two solid days of work to clear the Portsmouth line and that was with the help of the Army in the Liss / Bordon area.

As I was only 17 and a trainee at the time BR conditions meant that I could not be paid overtime so they gave me an extra day off and a free first class return to Penzance so that I got an extra long weekend at home again.

Any of us who witnessed that night have probably got our own tale to tell.  I was also on the railway at the time, as Catering Supervisor for Liverpool Street station.

I was rostered early shift that week anyway, normally 06.30 to 14.30.  So I had a fairly early night as my normal routine was to get up at 05.00 and after a brisk start catch the District Line from East Ham, which was 2 minutes walk from home, and change at Aldgate East to reach work.

The storm crashed through at around 03.00 and I was woken by the sounds of slamming doors, smashing glass and screaming.  I quickly realised this was no ordinary "blow" as my flat was turning into a wind tunnel even with every door and window shut.

Next door had their windows blown clean out and were all out in the street among flying glass in their night clothes and screaming.  Opposite had half their roof lying in the street.  There was tree litter and milk crates blowing everywhere along with an increasing amount of house parts.  There was of course no power.  The battery operated transistor radio (remember them?) came into its own.  Permanently tuned to BBC Radio 1 all that was being broadcast was "This is the BBC emergency service……" telling us there was no power in southern England and not to go out if our home was safe to stay in.  

The entire resources of the BBC seemed to consist of one announcer covering all frequencies simply repeating that he was working on generator power and one angle-poise lamp, and repeating the devastating news time and again.

I headed off for work at 04.30 figuring transport would be disrupted.  That was an understatement and a half as it turned out!  The District Line hadn't started service so I headed to BR Manor Park which had some all-night trains.  It was deserted and there were large trees across all four lines with all the overheads down.  Nothing doing.  

I started walking hoping for a lift and began to realise the extent of the devastation.  Shop fronts blown out with groceries being tossed around  in the the street by the wind.  Huge trees down blocking every road and preventing buses making progress.  I encountered a couple of out-bound night buses trapped with trees fallen in front and behind.

I reached Stratford with difficulty and was told there was no Central Line service because of trees down, no BR service because of multiple line blockages but to "stay put for a bit".  A yellow van appeared from the direction of the depot and the driver nobly steered around every form of obstruction and through very dangerous conditions to get me to work.  I arrived at 07.00 only 30 minutes late!

After a long and challenging day with basically no staff, no trains and a fair few people all hoping to travel somehow arriving into the deserted station I was wondering how I might get home.  The Central Line had been restored around mid-day but would only get me to Stratford.  Most buses were still not running.

I had managed to open and staff two take-away snack bars by persuading the night staff to double through (in good railway tradition) as they could not get home anyway.  By lunch time I had the bistro running at half capacity for a limited cooked meals service.  I doubled as platform and enquiry staff (anyone in uniform was fair game for questions!) and was delighted to see my late turn relief arrive only an hour late.

Incredibly there was an announcement at around 16.00 that the train approaching platform 5 would call at all stations to Gidea Park :shock: Knowing that the wires were still down in many places I wondered what might appear.  It wouldn't be the usual pair of class 315 units.

Staring out towards the daylight 100 or so of us who had stuck it out in the hope of getting somewhere were amazed to see a 2-car diesel parcels unit drawing into the station.  These had no seats, mostly only roller shutter doorways and were most certainly NOT authorised to carry passengers.

But as they say "Any port in a storm" and so we rode home on the down fast  which was being hand-signalled as a single line, and stopping all stations, aboard a DPU!

What a day.  And my thanks?  Zip.  Only the station cashier bothered to say anything when she came in the next day and looked at the takings which she had expected might be nothing; she said "You've done quite well then".  That was enough thanks.  I had done as much as I could in a unique event.

Any news about Petermac?