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Re: Christmas Cheer?

At 08:01 PM 12/24/97 +0000, Valerie Dennison wrote:
>What a Christmas!
>Next year it  definitely is Christmas away. We have been under seige from
>gales of up to 100 miles per hour for the past 24 hours. We have been
>without electricity since yesterday afternoon until an hour ago 

I am so sorry to hear about your Christmas. I hope that you will be able to
make it up on Boxing  Day or St Stephen's day as you call it over there. My
 brother in law comes from Achill and we heard their tale of woe today.
I agree it certainly has been some Christmas we are now in the middle of
our second violent storm in two days. There has been a lot of  structural
damage. Many local market garedners have lost glass and poly tunnels.
Fortunately the weather is very mild so plants if not wrenched from the
ground might survive.

Last night as I went to collect my husband from the pub my car was
bombarded by twigs and small branches On our return 10 mins later the road
was blocked off by the police. It transpired today that a woman had died
when tree hit her car. I must have missed it by minutes. Very Scary !!
There have also been other fatalities on Merseyside.
El Nino effect?
It was the worst storm I can remember here since 1976 when we lost lots of
tiles from our roof.         /'
>and amidst the candles and stoical attempts to rescue the Christmas spirit
>through ....board games?!!  we find that we have no water; the local pumping
>station has been hit by the storms.
>A very big Cupressus macrocarpa in our orchard is no more, snapped in two
>and flown into the farm yard next door.
>My beautiful, elegant, Pyrus salicifolia has lost it's top half ( will the
>bottom bit send forth new shoots and re-establish itself I wonder?)

What a pity such a lovely thing. I hope it will regrow.
 
My >greenhouse is gone -  all over the garden ; searching for and  picking up
>all the glass should be a joy. And we have come off relatively unscathed
>compared to other parts of the country.

Thta is a real heartache.In the days when I had a green house I remember
Dad and I going out in the teeth of a bad storm and lashing my green house
down with strong ropes tied to stakes that we hammered in the ground.
>However, it's an ill wind etc. as they say, we haven't had to watch Charlie
>and the Chocolate Factory and I have had the time (having nothing else to do
>besides keep the home fires burning) to look through my lovely new Phillips
>and Rix book, hot off the press - "Conservatory and Indoor Plants . Vol. 2."

A new Phillips and Rix book I must have that!!! all I got was a kit to
design my own T shirts with my computer.


Any way I have already taken your advice about getting away from it all and
I am off to Madeira on Monday for a week. Hope they haven't got any high
winds there or the airport might be closed!


Take care 














Colette Dunkley
Upton Wirral Merseyside England Approximates USDA Zones 8/9
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