A stormy day

The first blast of wind that I heard this morning came at 5.23am. Floris was on the warpath! By mid-morning it was getting pretty wild and MrsM went out to buy a paper before it got too severe, and on returning home reported several broken branches on trees at the end of our road. 

It's been fairly boisterous all day, though by mid-afternoon it had died down somewhat and the sun actually came out! Lots of my potted plants have been blown over and the big heap of prunings from yesterday kept blowing on top of my potted plants - I went out a couple of times to rescue them.

What's most annoying is the damage to my runner beans - my nine big pots of them are spaced out along the deck with tall canes to support the stems. I've spent ages carefully making sure that they're twined round the canes and tied up and now they're all smashed and broken. I'll have fun tomorrow trying to sort them out. So much for my bumper crop - this is the first summer storm we've had since my neighbour cut down most of the trees and shrubs in his garden and left me exposed. I hope my fellow Blippers haven't suffered too much! No fun to think that climate change is going to bring much more extreme weather. I cobbled up a quick limerick just for a laugh!

A passionate gardener named Maurice
Was dreading the start of Storm Floris.
He didn’t know who to blame
For the climate change game,
Whether Lula, Trump, Jinping or Boris!

I opened the front door this morning and saw a squirrel on top of the fence, apparently having a chew at the antler I'd fixed to the fence a couple of years ago. I'm told that they chew the antler to grind their teeth down and make use of the calcium - this is the first time I've seen a squirrel having a go at it. I asked him to wait while I went to fetch my camera, which he did, and I got several shots before he ran off - my Blip and extra today.