Storm Bound

What a past few days it has been in Scotland.

Just last week I was enjoying day after day of fantastic autumn weather; cool days, beautiful colours starting to appear and blue skies.

Then on Sunday all that changed.

A storm blew in, fuelled partly by the leftover energy of tropical storm Nadine in the Atlantic sucked in by low pressure in the Bay of Biscay moving north, and dumped a months worth of rain in one day in some places. The wind rattled the windows and ripped the leaves and branches from trees. I spent part of the day mesmerised by the sea, just 20m from my house, as six foot waves tumbled and crashed onto the beach. A fantastic sight and an impressive sound as the sea roared.

The following day the storm was starting to lose its energy but it was still wild. Then all was quiet, and a walk along the beach revealed a rather different landscape from just a few days before. The sea had sculpted the mile and a half long beach into a new shape and decorated the surface with all manner of drift wood material. It reminded me of west coast north American beaches on the edge of the Pacific. Today the beach is still the same but soon I suspect the clean up tractors will start to remove the debris, which is a shame in some ways as it looks great right now.

There has been a lot of people flooded out of their homes in England and it reminded me of the people of Minot that we had met, who had lost everything in a major flood, during the cycle across the US in 2011.

I have to admit that I love the wild weather. Maybe I wouldn't be such a fan if I were to be flooded out of course, but the changes that occur at this time of year are always of great interest. It's the end of nature's life cycle for the year, transitioning through to winter.

In last weeks blog I was out enjoying the autumn changes on my bike, but what a difference a week makes.