We’ve had a few windy days recently. It’s so easy to forget how windy and exposed it gets in Orkney in winter, when we have just had a very pleasant summer with barely a breeze at times. We rarely have a cold winter with frost and snow, just wind chill factor from weeks and weeks of gales. Sometimes the wind screams round the house like a banshee in a never ending fury. Then suddenly you wake up to still ness and you wonder if you’ve gone deaf – or died! I’m treasuring the remaining still days while I can!
With the first gale warning of the year most folk make sure everything movable is either tied down or removed otherwise that’s the last you’ll see of it! I’ve moved all my outdoor pots safely into the shed and generally checked for any other loose debris.
Hopefully the house itself will stand firm having survived various gales for 150 years! Thankfully I know the roof of the house is secure having had all the slates removed, new wood and “ties” put in, sarking etc, then old slates replaced when it was renovated. And in Orkney builders have the sense to nail slates onto the roof – not like south where each winter a house in my street would lose some tiles after a passing gale!
Picture of roof during and after renovations – the lowest point for me was when the roof was off and the house had to weather a gale – I was convinced the two gable ends would collapse in and that would the end of Sandside!
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