Storms Past

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As the slab-leaden sky of late afternoon morphs into evening and the first flurries of snow have passed and given way to well, more snow, it seems; the day draws to a close. In the light of yesterday's post, I've cut more of the thick veneer strips for the last trim pieces of The Kitchen Thing and glued them up in a custom-built jig: we'll see how stable the piece as a whole is tomorrow morning and take a decision on whether glueing them up as a piece is the right modus operandi, or whether glueing them individually to the Thing and finishing them in situ is the better thing to do. We'll see...

At least on the weather front, things are quiet, if cold & wintry: the Atlantic storms seem to have taken a break for now: it hasn't always been this quiet here in the festive season, though. Around a quarter of a century ago, when James was a small boy, we were preparing for Christmas at Brynbella Cottage, our then home. We'd got a duck for Christmas Day and a half-shoulder of lamb for Boxing Day planned and prepped. But the weather-gods had other plans.

Heavy snow fell, right down as far as the river Ogwen; just below the cottage, followed by gales, that combined with the sub-zero temperatures led to a fierce ice-storm up over Bryn Hall and the fields beyond towards Abergwyngregyn. Unfortunately for us, the power-lines feeding Brynbella and a few other likewise unfortunate properties near Tregarth ran over this, as it turned out, rather antique cable-run: one of the first electricity supplies to that end of Bethesda. The upshot was that all - all! - of the old wooden power poles across the hills were felled by the weight of the accruing ice and the ferocity of the storm.

We managed to get some sort of Christmas meal together, by cooking the Boxing Day Lamb in the small oven of our woodburner - the duck simply wouldn't fit. Despite not having any power, we managed to have a good day and a very early night of it. The dawning realization on Boxing Day that we weren't likely to get the electricity back any time soon led us to pack the car, duck and all, and head for our parents' in Birmingham for the duration. The outage apparently lasted five days: the guys from the power company working day and night in blizzard conditions to restore service; poles, cables and all renewed in the teeth of a fearsome storm, chwarae teg to 'em.

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