Re: Hurricane over France

["hn.heather" <hn.heather@wanadoo.fr>]

> Hey Heather
> How are you doing over there? I hate to make a new friend just to lose
> her in a windstorm.

Hi Bette
Yeah, back online now, albeit with my pc installed in someone else's house
coz still no power at home after 9 days.........
Hey it got a bit blowy for a while last Monday, started around 6pm & carried
on thru the night, gusts of over 170kmh, highest winds in living memory.
We fortunately suffered no major damage.  Cypruss tree down next to the
house but it fell away from the house, fell on a rather sad old shed which
is now even sadder!  However it was a useful shed, housed the lawn-mower,
the electric fence controller & suchlike junk.
We have 2 horse buildings, one old stone barn with interior boxes & one
"Dutch" barn with 10x10 electric tape pens.  The stone barn has big double
doors, solid oak, dread to think what they weigh, well they got lifted off
their hinges, one fell outside, one inside.  The horses in must have
practically died of fright when that happened.
Some tiles off the roof & a couple of poplar trees down in the fields but no
damage to humans or horses.
Interestingly in the Dutch barn there are 6 pens, 4 up one end & 2 up the
other end with hay, tractors etc inbetween.
In the 4 pens are 4 experienced "been there, done that" endurance horses.
These old-timers had to be turned back out in their paddocks at around 7pm
because they were going "ape" & were obviously going to make their own way
out if not let out.  OK the barn roof was vibrating some......up the other
end were 2 2yr old colts who normally live out, brought them in coz it had
been cold & rainy all day & felt sorry for them.  They ate their supper lay
down in their nice shavings bed & slept it thru!  Perhaps their instincts
are just blunted!
Apparently the problem with the power is the number concrete pylons down
(thousands) & the power people just don't didn't have enough to replace
them, they've bought in from Spain & Portugal & all over.
Also lots of trees down obstructing access to pylons & transformers.
One village in the Medoc, wine area north of Bordeaux, was completely
flooded, 1m5 of water in the houses in just 10 mins!  Puts things in
perspective.
I think the death-toll, including the winds that ripped up Paris & the north
of France over the Xmas w/end, is up to around 100.
There are people in isolated areas of France, particularly heavily forested
areas, who won't have power back before the end of the month!
OK this is nothing to do with endurance but thought you might like to know.
When I got online I had over 600 messages in my mail-box & have JUST got
thru reading/deleting.  That was after logging onto Compuserve & checking my
english/australian mail-box where there were another 200-odd.  Wow, will
never again complain that no-body loves me!
Will try & send my 2 cents worth on current topics & reply to a couple of
people who have posted me questions.
Ciao
Heather



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