I hadn’t looked at the weather forecast for a few days; it was grey, gloomy, wet and windier than normal, but to my mind, unlikely to change much.

So I was quite surprised to be woken at 3 o’clock on Thursday morning by the sound of the bedroom door rattling, rain hammering into the guttering, things falling over on balconies ( not mine, I hoped) and the wind absolutely howling. The doors and shutters were all firmly closed, but there must be a tiny gap somewhere, to account for the rattling and the whistling sound.

Not much more sleep then; it was quite scary.

By the time I got up, it was a bit quieter;  I thought I’d go for a walk round the lake as I didn’t fancy driving to Seignosse for the patchwork club. Everywhere there were fallen branches and big trees completely uprooted; there was a couple of big stacks of logs neatly piled up and further round the lake, a team of workmen armed with chain saws, clearing blocked paths and loading the debris into a lorry. One big tree had been cleared from where it had fallen, blocking the main road, the pavement around its base completely smashed.

Most of the fallen trees were huge; it’s been very wet for weeks, so I suppose their purchase on the earth had been diminished. I hope they’ll be replaced.

All in all though, we were lucky here, we got off lightly; two people lost their lives and hundreds of thousands are still without electricity.