You know it's been windy when...

...part of your neighbours roof lands in your courtyard!

The wild,wild wind...

We recently moved into our Le Grand Pressigny ('Les Balcons') house for the winter. Of our two houses, our Barrou house winters best.  Being  stone built, with good thick walls, it survives with just turning everything off and closing the door. 'Les Balcons' however requires a little more TLC, so we are as well  using it while administering it! The other thing is, we do not get a chance to use it during the warmer months as fortunately it rents out well during these periods. Our houses are our business so we need to look after them well in readiness for the new year ahead. Since all the major projects at 'Les Balcons' were completed for the beginning of last season, the work now is more 'tweaking' to make sure everything is up to standard. The one thing we can't prepare for is 'natural disasters' so the current high winds (over 50mph)  make us feel a little vulnerable. I am a light sleeper, so do not enjoy lying listening to the phenomenon that is wind, especially when it is a wild one! I have visions of our lovely balcony roof soaring through the air to its new destination.

What is wind exactly? - it's air, which on the face of it is pretty harmless but when it becomes wind  it can be real scary, with the strength to blow off roofs and rip trees out of the ground. From my school days (not yesterday) we were taught that wind is 'moving air caused by differences in air pressure within our atmosphere. Under high pressure air moves toward areas of low pressure. The greater the difference in pressure, the faster the air flows' and we have wind. I don't know about you but I always felt short-changed by this explanation - maybe because we can't see or touch it but only see the effects of it. Wind, has always for me, taken on a somewhat mystical quality. Its ability to go quiet and appear to have 'passed over' but then sneak back up on you with a wham is awesome!


We are currently waiting for daylight so as we can view the house externally as from the inside it sounds as if it has taken a real hammering - will let you know how we get on,,,