A bit windy

Looking out of the window at the winter sunshine lighting up the garden today, it’s almost unimaginable that last weekend, the UK was battered by another named storm.  We seem to have more of those these days, don’t we, and I expect that’s something we may need to get used to.  The storm forecast last weekend was Storm Darragh and initial predictions were that it would hit the west of the country with the chance of it moving further across, but at the time that I saw the forecast, there wasn’t much more information.

“We might be OK!” we told ourselves, as we got ready to head across the country to the Yorkshire east coast, with the intention of spending the weekend together in a log cabin.  We’d booked the break earlier in the year as a Christmas present to ourselves and we were really looking forward to it.  We were promised a cabin in the forest with a log burner, a BBQ (not that we had much intention of using that in December!) and a hot tub – and the dog was welcome to come along too.  Not so small daughter would come over from university on the train, big daughter would pick my husband up on the way when they both finished work, and the dog and I would be the advance party to get checked in, the fire lit and the cabin cosy for everyone else arriving.  It sounded just what we needed in the run up to the holiday season.

Friday dawned, the day of the predicted storm, and the weather in Winwick was the usual damp and grey weather without any hint of anything unusual to come.  My friend Lucy was in Saltburn at the same time (not too far from where we would be staying) and I messaged her to ask what the weather was like.  “It’s lovely here!” she said, sending me photos of blue sky and the Saltburn bathed in winter sunshine.  So far so good.  I loaded the car up with extra logs for the fire, blankets for the sofa as no doubt we would want to snuggle up and watch a film at some point, bags of food (including, on an impulse, a bag of potatoes) and the dog.

“We won’t need to take too much food,” my husband said, “We’ll probably want to eat out as a treat.”  Hmm.  We’ve had this “we won’t need too much” conversation before and it usually ends badly if someone wants something to eat and there’s nothing except a couple of biscuits and an over-ripe banana that’s got a bit squashed in the car (yes, this is lived experience!).  I made sure we had plenty of options for breakfast, and enough to eat if we didn’t feel like going out – and as it turned out, I was very glad that I did.

I was on the ring road outside Leeds at about the time that not so small daughter was getting on the train to meet me.  I did feel a bit bad that I could almost see the station, but she was still getting the train!  I’ve driven around Leeds before and after several loops of the ring road and never getting any closer to my destination, I decided that it was much safer for my sanity and our relationship to let her get the train and I didn’t take the exit to the city centre.  A bit later, I stopped in a lay-by to check my phone.  She was at York, waiting for her next train.  “Are you sure you don’t want to pick me up from York station?” she asked.  “Absolutely sure,” I said, not wanting to navigate through another unknown city.  “I’ll see you later.”  By now, it was dark and the rain had started.  I was in a queue of cars at a huge roundabout and my sat nav was not quite clear about which lane I should be in.  There was muttering, and the dog started grumbling because he had had enough of being in the car.  My phone rang.  “Mum, my train’s been cancelled!”

At this point, can I just recommend that if you don’t have to drive into York at 4.30pm on a Friday night when it’s dark and raining to try to find the station through roadworks with a sat nav that is having some kind of Friday night moment, it’s probably best avoided.  There was more muttering.  There was swearing.  There was barking (the dog, not me).  There was beeping from other cars, annoyed at the roadworks and visitors who didn’t know how to find the station.  There was frustration when not so small daughter who was at the wrong side of the station and didn’t know how to get to my side, breezily announced, “Oh don’t worry, I’ll just start walking somewhere.”  There was more swearing.  Finally, there was a relief when she was in the car and we were on our way.

There was enormous gratitude when we finally arrived at the cabin resort and were greeted at the retreat centre door by a smiling lady ready to hand us small glasses of mulled wine and tick off our names on a checklist.  Within minutes, our keys were in our hands, the wifi code was on our phones, we had directions to our cabin and a list of weekend activities that we could join in with if we wanted to.  I can’t tell you how glad I was that we were there!

Goodness, that’s a lot of words about our journey!  I hope you’re still with me – I promise I do have some photos to show you!

The next morning, with the rest of the family safely arrived and having had a lovely evening by our fire, we were nicely settled in.  That’s our little pop-up Christmas tree that we took with us and I really should have fluffed the branches out a bit!

What a lovely cabin!  I could quite happily have moved in, although I might well have needed more rooms or even a second cabin for all my yarn, books and general stuff.  I am certainly not a minimalist person!

I adored the floor to ceiling windows that looked out onto the trees and the whole Scandi-chic vibe.  Underfloor heating, big squishy sofas, lots of natural light – it was just my kind of place!

The dog liked the fact that everyone was on the same level.  He settled in surprisingly well and once his bed was down in a comfortable place, he was on it and he was a happy boy.

I settled myself on the sofa next to the lamp.  The light in the cabin living room was more ambient than designed for someone needing to see small stitches and the low light level outside didn’t help despite the big windows to let the light in, but I could see well enough and with my brew next to me, there was no need to be moving anywhere for a while.

The lovely thing about being away from home for a weekend with no particular agenda is that it doesn’t really matter what time  you do anything.  It was so nice to have a slow start, to sit and chat to my husband over a mug of tea whilst I was knitting, to listen to the ticking sounds from the log burner as the metal expanded in the heat, and hear the rhythmic snoring from the dog’s bed.  Outside, the rain had started and every now and again it would gust against the windows, but even that just added to the cosiness of the moment.

Not so small daughter would normally sleep for Britain, but for once even she was up at a reasonable time and before long, we were debating whether to go for a walk in the rain.  That doesn’t necessarily sound like fun, but we didn’t know if it was going to get any worse and we wanted to see around the resort site and make sure that the dog had been out for a decent walk if we were going to kept inside later.

We headed out from the resort into the forest.  There were numerous small streams and all of them were full, rushing water away down the hill at a ferocious speed.

The rain got heavier.  You can probably tell from this photo that the family were thoroughly enjoying the walk …

We didn’t stay out too long.  We might have walked further, but the dog decided it was time to go back and that was it.  We headed back to the retreat centre and dripped inside to the small cafe where they had a roaring fire, a tasty lunch menu and towels for wet dogs.  Outside, the rain got heavier and started battering against the windows.  We had another brew, not wanting to brave the rain just yet.

Later, with a slight lull in the downpour, we walked back to our cabin – and in a moment of giddiness, we decided to get into the hot tub and sit in the bubbles in the rain.  You can tell we don’t have a hot tub at home, I’m sure the novelty of being in hot water with a hat on whilst the rain fell would have worn off long ago if we had! 🙂

We’d been in the hot tub for about 15 minutes when the power went off.  We sat there for a while longer in case it came back on, but it didn’t, and it started to feel like we were having a family bath so we got out.

Once inside again, we dried off, stoked up the fire and waited for the power to come back on.  We waited, and we waited.  Outside, it grew dark and the wind started to pick up.  We decided to make a dash to the retreat centre to find out what the latest information was, and came back with wine, beer, more logs for the fire and the knowledge that the whole area was without power so we might as well stay put until the morning.

By now, the trees were swaying alarmingly and the rain was battering against the windows again.  We hadn’t missed the storm at all.  It’s quite a strange experience to be in such a remote place completely without electricity, wifi and phone signal.  My husband and I remembered growing up with blackouts but our girls have never experienced anything quite like this for so long.  We have had long power cuts here at home, but it’s different when the lights go out in your own house, I think.  You know where everything else and if you wanted to get something from elsewhere in the house, it wouldn’t be so difficult to go and get it.  We had what we’d taken to the cabin in the car, and once our phone batteries were gone they were gone, unless we chose to go and sit in the car to charge them up again – but surrounded by the swaying trees, it was safer to stay indoors.  That was another reason why didn’t try to drive home that night – why put ourselves at risk in the wind and rain when we had everything we immediately needed right there?

You know, sometimes the best times come out of unexpected situations.  We were safe, we were warm, we knew that the power would come back on eventually and that compared to other people elsewhere in the country and even in the world, this was just an inconvenience.  I wrapped up potatoes in tin foil, put them in the log burner and we ate them for our supper with lots of butter and cheese.  Not so small daughter had a pack of cards.  We played a game: “What’s your top/favourite three …?” and our discussion about TV shows, films, bands, songs, food, chocolate bars, dog breeds, types of clothes, sports, even what events we would compete in at the Olympics (both summer and winter) continued until the fire burned low and we were ready to tuck ourselves into our comfy beds.

In the morning, there was a knock at our cabin door and we were told that it was safe to leave and that the site was going to be closed as the power was still out.  We drove home slowly through the wind and the rain, considerably more subdued now, and marvelled at the fallen trees and rivers with burst banks that we passed.  Nature has such incredible force.

Safely back home and with immediate thoughts of the power outage in our minds, we made sure that we have a proper power cut kit because whatever your beliefs about climate change or even the increase in electric car charging, the reality is that this is happening more often.  I wrote about the last power cut we had at home and making a power cut kit during Blogtober here but of course, once the power is back on and you start catching up with everything, it’s easy not to do anything about it.  This time, though, we decided that we had better get on with it.  I bought a couple of essentials from Amazon (and the following are affiliate links) …

I’ve got a set of small torches …

and a portable wind-up radio.  It looked bigger than it is on the Amazon page so I was quite surprised when it arrived and it fitted into my hand!  It’s got a good sound, though, and it tuned to a radio station really easily so it will be fine for what we need it for.

We’ve also got an old analogue telephone that my Dad brought round years ago which I’ll put in the box as well.  It’s a bit of a concern that we’re being swept towards digital phone numbers because what happens if the world internet goes out?  That’ll never happen?  Let me remind you of coronavirus …  Anyway, away from the doom and gloom, we now actually do have a box of essentials for power cuts and if we are ever likely to be away during a storm again, then I will make sure that we pack it!

And here we are, a week later and the storm is a collective memory for us, a weekend away that wasn’t like any we’ve had before (and hopefully since) – and a long story on the blog!  Thanks for sticking with me to the end 🙂

I hope that you were able to keep safe and warm too, and I’ll catch up with you again soon  xx