Throughout last night we had what I think was the worst storm we have experienced since we started living here.  Rain, hail, high winds, thunder and lightning which seemed to go on and on and on and on.  This morning our bed resembled the scene from the Sound of Music when there has been a storm and all the children are on the bed with Maria singing My Favourite Things except we had the cats and not the kids although they did enjoy the line which refers to "whiskers on kittens" but not so much the "brown paper packages tied up with string" because that plays havoc with their paws!!  The weather must have been bad for them all to end up on the bed.

We needed to nip down to Polis this morning and took the road which passes below the Droushia Heights Hotel - we just managed to squeeze down the side of a rather large tree that had been uprooted.  On our way back it had been turned into a pile of logs by someone wielding a chainsaw in the rain and wet - he was either desperate or a fool - chainsaws and water don't do too well together.

We needed to pop one of our panel heaters down to the electric shop - although it is elderly the nice girl in there thought it could probably be repaired at a reasonable cost which will save us buying a new one - you have to love that little electric shop in Polis - they never pressurise you into buying something if you don't need to and that makes us want to support it all the more.

We think we have found one of the pissed up mice which availed themselves to John's Beer Baby or at least half of one because when we returned from Polis there was the back-end under the dining table in the house which we think Chivers must have brought in for us as a gift - sweet of him but not top of our Christmas list.

Although it had been brighter down in Polis the weather is still very very unsettled and there were yellow weather warnings for later today.  Sadly they were not wrong and come the afternoon it was vile outside and we were lucky that we didn't lose the electric as the storm gathered in strength.  We had some glitches and some very bright bolts of lightning so we switched things off until the worst had passed.  This weather is very reminiscent of the winter we had in 2012 which then was deemed to be the wettest in 40 years.

We really didn't mind too much about the weather because we were toasty and warm inside and no leaks to worry about and were having leftovers for supper.  I had found a recipe for some of the gammon and turkey and cheese that we had in the fridge - the remainder has gone into the freezer.  Turkey, Ham and Swiss Casserole is what this is called and very nice it was too - probably a million calories based on the amount of gooey cheese and cream that was in it but made a change from turkey curry which is normally what I do with the remains.

We watched two films this evening.  My sister had given Mum a copy of Fisherman's Friends on DVD which I wanted to watch but we don't have any means to play a DVD so we managed to find it on our box and both really enjoyed it so then I managed to find another really lovely film called Finding Your Feet which was brilliant and I would recommend anyone to see it.

Tomorrow is New Year's Eve - we have nothing special planned...