What a night!

I was at my daughters for my GDs birthday and the power went at 6pm we had to order a takeway Chinese meal eaten by candlelight then played games we had fun and the repair team arrived as I was leaving. But I couldn’t see any trees down on the way home.
I hope everyone is ok.

It was fierce right enough. I have yet to inspect for damage.

On a quick inspection just fence posts weakened and a plan5 pot on its side.

Today is our recycling collection day. I only put out one box which has a lid and I weighed it down with 2 bricks, and decided to hang onto the rest of it until next week.

My neighbour put out all of theirs with no covering, and within half an hour all their cardboard and paper had blown everywhere and so had the recycling boxes which were banging around and disappearing up the road.

No common sense.

Yes we’ve done the same with ours Sparkle but not everyone has..

I heard and noticed zilch. My house is well insulated so it was as quiet as usual. I heard nothing when in bed and I slept like a log. Even my garden furniture had not moved and this was London.

I was driving in it. DH was carted off to hospital yesterday and I followed.

Not too bad mid afternoon but the return journey at 10.00pm was 'interesting'. the rain was hammering down on the car. Fortuntely the ambulance crew advised me to avoid the dual carriage way, so I used an alternative route that kept me out of most of the wind, but there were twigs all over the road and some branches down, but I took it slow and steady and had classic fm on the radio and got home safely.

I'm excited by extreme weather, thunderstorms, blizzards - even the hurricane we had a few years back with 90 mph winds, so I looked forward to the strong gales arriving. I went to sleep listening to it roaring around the house and through the treetops. It was so strong it made the draw curtains in our bedroom move in the draught - and that's with double glazed windows 😳. I awoke during the night to the wind gusting loudly and rain lashing against the windows. Last time we had a gale, the TV ariel fell off the chimney with a huge bang. That wasn't too exciting 😱.
I do always think of the homeless at times like this though. I hope they managed to find a warm shelter.

Glad you had an exciting time Fairycakes I believe at least four people died as a result not so exciting for them I guess

Yes, there have been some tragedies, and another storm is imminent. 😞 Hope you all stay safe. 🙏

How many of you remember the storm of October 1987?

I was staying in Milton Keynes and was woken up by a violent storm. It was much worse in Suffolk. We had an old timber frame house then and my DH felt the house shake. Our dog, who as sleeping downstairs cried so much that he let her come into the bedroom - where she slept ever since.

The train into London was OK but the trains out were cancelled somewhere in Essex. My DH managed to collect me but we had to make several detours because of fallen trees. We had no power but luckily had a large wood burner which I we cooked on for nearly two weeks. We also had a camping stove so we weren't too badly off. It was a common sight to see helicopters flying around dangling wooden poles for the telephone cables. Ancient oaks in parkland suffered as did the plantations of pines up the coast. The trunks of the majority of them were all snapped off at about 9 or 10 feet high.

I'm sorry for any that lost their lives, BlueBelle, but I was sharing my own experience.

Very wild night. Bin lids flying around the garden and the wind roaring around the house. Fortunately there was no real damage.
Our electricity went off for about four hours this afternoon, all is well now.

It’s wild here again in Durham tonight - seems as bad as yesterday - certainly as noisy.

Georgesgran

It’s wild here again in Durham tonight - seems as bad as yesterday - certainly as noisy.

Same here in Glasgow. We had hailstones earlier, it looked as if it had been snowing.

I do remember those gales well!
The wall of the Manor House on the edge of our village came down right across the road, luckily nobody was hurt.
The "best" was that the roof of the maths building at the school where I taught was seen starting to lift so we were all sent home! Yay!
When I got home I realised our rabbit hutch wasn't in the garden!
My neighbour had seen it start to lift in the wind so she and another neighbour rescued it and carried it into our garage (which was never locked). Very grateful our bunny did not become airborne.