Janet Baraclough wrote:

Thanks Pete, I heard about that on the radio news this morning,,glad
to hear you're okay. It's a long time since Wes posted.

Scotland is in the grip of severe gales and floods; three killed by
gales since yesterday, all high bridges closed and the entire ferry
service cancelled.The west -coast island of Barra measured gusts of 126
mph last night. We only got 70 mph here.

Janet. (Isle of Arran)

Hi Janet
glad to hear your little bit of paradise escaped the worst of the winds,
seems many places are experiencing weather extremes or some kind of
force of nature, massive floods in the US and record snow falls/drifts,
Saw a mudslide in one US town and of course the worst ...the Tsunamis

On Christmas eve the biggest earthquake Tasmania had ever experienced
happened 900 klms off the Tassie coast ... I was talking to people about
how lucky Tassie was that they hadnt had a Tsunami from that quake when
I saw the Indonesian ones, at first I thought it was the same quake or
some after shock effect, then I realised it was another one, again the
biggest ...

I think Ireland has had floods too,??. We had our worst storm that we
can remember a few days a go, lost some trees and shed roofs buckled,
horses bolted through fences, friends lost many sheds and had severe
house damage, luckily no-one hurt but hell it was scary. lost another
tree that must have been weakened in the storm when the hot gale force
northerlies came the other day (the bush fire day).

It makes us realise how insignificant we humans really are when the
weather or mother nature decides to throw some huge event our way,
theres just nothing you can do except try to stay safe.

This year has started off pretty dramatically, lets hope it calms down some.