So That Was What All The Fuss Was About...

 By the time I wrote yesterday's post about Isha being imminent the worst had passed- though I didn't know it. We'd heard the wind howling in the night and the rain throwing everything it had at the glass and we'd thought "if this is what it's like now just wait till the storm shows up..."

Blase? A bit. But we've lived in Oldham- which sits on a bare northern hill where the winter months are so much more intense than they are down south and after that on a farm in Kent in a house surrounded by big old oak trees which made a hell of a noise when the wind got into them and would have done real damage if they'd fallen over. We've lived through storms that felt properly dangerous- and Isha never did...

It's raining now, but gently- and the air is quite warm...

Well, Well, Well...

 My birthday was on Sunday. The Quakers had got wind of it and there was cake (three cakes to be precise),  "Happy birthday to you" and even a balloon. Damn, but it's good to have friends.

I'm 73.

Well, well, well well, well.....

Miscellaneous Stuff

 We've been ordering from Ocado. They tell us the driver's name in advance and also which van he'll be driving. The vans can be identified by the kind of fruit that's depicted on their bodywork. Today's van was the fig van. Isn't that sweet?

 My sister is deep into researching family history. We had a long, long phone conversation about it this morning. Our great grandfather was a man called Charles Grist. We used to know nothing about him- but my sis has now established that he was a "carman" which can mean several different things but in this case is probably synonymous with carter- meaning he drove a horse-drawn vehicle of some sort. Charles Grist is an uncommon name but we've established there were at least two chaps with that handle knocking about in late 19th century England- one of them born in Colchester and one on Romney Marsh. Of the two Romney Marsh seems the more likely but one mustn't assume. The next thing will be to try and work out which of them is our old fella.

 Isha has come and gone but storm Jocelyn is on its way...