A hasty post in case the phone line goes off again. It is being rubbed lovingly by a tall and gangly broom (shrub, not besom; an explanation I’ve already given to a friend – sorry to bore you, AB, if you look in) and might go. I have heard two creaks and crashes, which sounded like branches rather than whole trees. One of the greenhouses is badly bowed; let it go if it will, there’s nothing to be done about it. I have lit a nightlight so that we will not be left scrambling for matches if the lights go out. Nothing more to do, as long as the tall pine that is due to be cut down (after our experience of a couple of weeks ago) doesn’t fall on the house.

I’m watching television as I write, with tears in my eyes, at the lives lost during this storm. In the usual English way, it is not a dreadful gale by global standards, but we like our undemonstrative weather and this is quite bad enough in its unpredictable devastation.