I know I have readers in many parts of the UK, so would be interested to know how strong the wind and storms were in your part of the world.
Here in Hethersett, it was pretty bad but perhaps not quite as bad as we had feared. The really heavy winds delayed meaning that they were over a shorter period than might have been expected.
I was tickled by a friend's post on Facebook which pointed out that the storm was given the name EUNICE which he broke down into two parts EU and NICE. So he thought it might be an anti Brexit storm. He finished his post with the following words:
"I wake up in the early hours with my head full of this sort of crap. Should I worry, or will it just blow over?"
Which just proves that I'm not the only one that thinks up nonsense.
Back to the storm. It meant that for the first time this year, I didn't go out for a walk - but don't worry I am still up with my target of 1,500 miles in 2022.
I never know how to feel when the Media cover a potential hazard. In this case the warning about the dangers of the storm and heavy winds. Based on comments and forecasts we decided to come home from our holiday a day early and I think that was a good decision.
But there is no doubt that the Media and other services love a crisis. It's very often what keeps them going and at times they tend to lose their handle on reality. There's nothing more attractive to some than a natural disaster, especially when you know it's coming.
Over my working years, I spent a number of evenings in flood control rooms waiting to see (or should that be sea) or hear about waves crashing over promenades, rivers bursting their banks and homes being flooded, only for everything to move round the coast and disappear.
So many times on television we have seen reporters big up conditions to illustrate the points they are making. Chaos on our roads is often accompanied by a shot of a less than chaotic motorway. Stories about huge snow drifts can be accompanied by pictures of light snowfall and diabolical wind conditions often feature a reporter whose hair is being lightly blown and not much more.
Of course sometimes the conditions are terrible and there's no doubt that was the case yesterday. Let's hope that Spring is just around the corner although we haven't had a bad winter, all things concerned.
In reporting events it's better to go over the top and get things wrong rather than being a bit more realistic. If you tell everyone that Armageddon is just around the corner, when it doesn't happen there is relief. If you tell people that things aren't going to be that bad and they turn out to be really bad you will be criticised for not planning correctly or giving out wrong and insufficient information (think weather-forecaster Michael Fish for his famous faux pas where he told a television audience of probably millions that there wouldn't be a hurricane in 1987. Boy did he get that wrong but that's what he is remembered for rather than all his years in meteorology although he did get an MBE for that). Although of course MBE could stand for Michael's Big Error.
One of my avid (always think that's a kind of creature, but that's an aphid) readers Jill sent me an interesting cutting about Norfolk floods in 1912.
It goes into great details about the flooding of the railway line between Wymondham and Hethersett. I love the way newspaper reports from bygone days go into such tiny details. You can see that cutting with this blog.
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Later this year we are going to Australia and so here is a quiz question and I will give the answer tomorrow. Who or what is the Fremantle Doctor? I know one of my readers who lives in Perth will know the answer to that one. Here's a hint - I heard about it through watching cricket at the WACA (Western Australia Cricket Association ground) although technically it doesn't have a connection with sport.
Hope you enjoy some of my photographs taken on out last couple of days in Kent. They are of Deal and Whitstable. At Whitstable there was a large portrait of the author Somerset Maugham on one of the walls. It is very similar to that of George Orwell on Southwold Pier. There was also an interesting inscription on one of the seats. So quiz question number two: who wrote the following - "Hear the sailors cry, smell the sea feel the sky. Let your spirit fly." Once again answers tomorrow.