First of all a big "thank you" to all those Fletcher Saga readers who wished Maureen a speedy recovery, your kind thoughts and concern were much appreciated.

January 2005 has been an interesting month, I use "interesting" in the sense of the old Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times". On Tuesday 11 Jan we had very, very high winds which boomed around the house all night long making sleep virtually impossible and the infrequent showers of rain on our front door and windows sounded like someone throwing buckets of nails at them. When I ventured out next day the wind was still blowing hard but there was no damage to our house. The house next door lost several roof slates whilst the Fish Mart which is right on the waters edge in Whitehall village lost a couple of windows and over 50 roof slates. Orcadian houses are built to withstand high winds but this was exceptional even by Orcadian standards. "The Orcadian" newspaper reported that:

• "Tuesday night's storms dominated the news on Wednesday morning, as Orkney was hit by some of the strongest winds in Scotland. A Met Office spokesman confirmed that hurricane force gusts over 100 mph, possibly as high as 115 mph, battered the county late on Tuesday night and into the early hours of Wednesday morning. 'You are almost off the top of the Beaufort Scale, recording hurricane force 12 winds,' he said".
  "As expected, there were considerable disruption caused by the storms on Tuesday and Wednesday, with all the county's schools closed. All Orkney Ferries' internal sailings were cancelled on Wednesday, as were all NorthLink's ferries to and from Orkney. Flights at Kirkwall Airport were also hit by the bad weather."

Our electricity supply failed at 10 am on Wednesday 12 Jan. It appears that a broken insulator had left live cables trailing on the road so the electricity to Whitehall village had to be turned off for safety reasons. The south of Stronsay was not affected by the cut and Papa Stronsay monastery was oblivious to the power cut as they have their own generator. There was a very high tide at lunchtime and the jetty at Whitehall village was invisible. The wind-driven water from the very high tide threatened shops and houses on Whitehall harbour frontage but the neighbours and the island's volunteer fire brigade helped prevent serious damage or injury.

When the vicar of our previous parish in Scarborough phoned at teatime on Wednesday because several parishioners had asked him if we had survived the storms I was able to reassure him that we had indeed survived and that we had plenty of coal, gas bottles, food, matches and candles. Whilst the power was off we kept the coal fire burning 24 hours a day and the gas cooker's oven left on a very low light all day (and night - for the kitten). I thought that the candle-lit rooms looked quite nice and the kitten was fascinated by the candle flames. However, Maureen was not too pleased to see all the candle-wax drips when the sun rose at 9 am next day. One interesting result of the power cut on Wednesday was that when I looked out of the front door at 9 pm the sky was clear and there were so many more stars visible than usual because there were no lights around us to interfere.

The electric power came back on at 10 am on Thursday when the engineers who had come over on the ferry from Kirkwall fixed our problem, they then got a lift on a fishing boat over to Eday and Sanday to fix the problems on those islands. Thursday 13 January was cold and breezy but the sun shone from a clear blue sky for most of the day. When I was able to use my computer again on Thursday I was amazed at the number of emails from people asking if we were still alive because news programmes gave impression that Orkney had been devastated.

We had another power cut from 9 pm Friday 13 Jan to 3 pm Saturday 14 Jan because a transformer fault caused an electricity pole to catch fire thus forcing all electric power to the island to be cut until engineers arrived on Saturday morning's ferry. This time we were getting used to it and our well-oiled system swung into action; soon the candles, night-lights and matches were distributed in all the rooms whilst the freezers were kept securely closed until the power returned.

Only slightly less spectacular was the Ebenezer Store's "bring & buy" sale and coffee morning in early January which raised well over 600 pounds for the tsunami appeal, not bad for an island of under 400 inhabitants.

Rev Dr Jennifer George arrived on Stronsay on Thursday 06 Jan as Moncur Memorial Church's locum minister. She took her first service on Sunday 09 Jan and we were delighted when she called into our house for a cup of tea and a chat on the following Monday. She is a charming lady who is very easy to speak with, unlike some vicars and ministers that we have known in the past. She did confide that she was finding the weather a little colder and rather different to what she is accustomed to in California, USA - and this was before the Force 12 winds!

My last Saga mentioned Matilda roosting in our friends' house and watching daytime television. One "Fletcher Saga" reader remarked that daytime television appears to be aimed at an audience whose intellectual capacity is slightly below that of Matilda. Our local GP was somewhat startled when he made a house call to our friend's house and found Matilda roosting on a chair in the kitchen.

I ventured out on Thursday after the storm to do a bit of shopping. Unfortunately I managed to lose my footing just outside Ebenezer Store. I did not hit the ground because my head collided with the side of parked car. Fortunately I had chosen to head-butt a car that just been parked by Fr Nicholas from Papa Stronsay monastery and he very kindly drove me the short distance home as I was a bit dazed. Later on the island doctor called in to see me at home and told me that I would live but probably have a rather spectacular black eye and headaches for a while; so far the black eye prediction has come true but the headaches have, fortunately, not yet appeared..

Last updated 15 January 2005