A mini tornado in our garden...

Today was really not a good day for us and it had started out so well.  We had got all the food ready for our meal with Mum and John had laid the table outside and put out the garden umbrellas to provide shade.  Unusually Mum had not text me to say she had left which was a bit of a worry but we thought that she had probably just forgot.  

We were just outside looking at the existing gazebo over the dining table and taking some measurements as we are planning on redeveloping that area because the old gazebo is not going to last forever when we heard a strange sound and the wind started to whip up and then we had something like a mini tornado which whipped around the garden and through from the front door out through the patio doors and John was worried that it was so strong it might lift the roof.  It didn't and actually seeing as it was confined it simply blew anything that could move into a new position.  The same could not be said for outside.

It was really scary to watch the carnage that the wind produced outside as it came round the corner of the house through the dining area, up and over the roof terrace and then beyond the house to the fields below.  At one point there was a complete umbrella circling over John's head.  We lost just about everything from the roof terrace and the items on the dining table were sent flying and smashed.  In fact it took us several hours to find everything that we thought was missing - the cover of the flying umbrella ended up in a tree two fields away and our garden clock went for an impromptu swim in the pool.  My lovely old terracotta pots were smashed and one of the chairs of our new patio furniture ended up with a big hole in it and the big storage box was lifted and thrown around and smashed.  In all we reckon to replace all the things we need to replace we had about 5 minutes of madness which ended up doing at least €1,000 damage, not to mention all the small pots, plants, glasses and ornaments that I have just written off.  I was absolutely gutted.  In the middle of all this Mum pitched up having forgotten to send the text to let us know she had been late leaving.  She probably thought we were quite rude but I had to plonk her in the conservatory whilst we cleaned up.  There was so much broken glass everywhere I couldn't chance her going outside.

We didn't get to sit down for lunch until much later than planned with new crockery and glasses on the table and I didn't have the enthusiasm to do the barbeque on the grill at the table so I cooked it indoors and it wasn't so successful really.  We actually ended up eating our puddings indoors because even though the worst of the wind had abated it kept whipping up and through again and Mum was cold.  We are a bit worried about her because she admitted she had left late because she had fallen asleep and then she fell asleep in the conservatory which isn't like her at all.  In fact she seemed quite unsteady on her feet today.  She said her leg was hurting her and then said it was her back so I don't really know what the problem is what I do know is she has made a right mess of her leg again.

We had also noticed that Minnie was not herself - she has never been a big cat although she has had a reasonably good appetite providing you feed her raw pigs liver until the last couple of days when she has eaten next to nothing and been sick a couple of times - including this afternoon whilst Mum was with us.  We will have to take her to the vets tomorrow - that is going to have to be the new vets because the one we did use has closed.  She is a bit of a worry as she is such a strange nervy little thing that she will be totally freaked out by going in the car.

After Mum had left and let us know she was safe and sound we continued with our clearing up exercise and in particular the search for the missing leg of the chair that had got broken.  We scoured the field next door but couldn't find it but eventually we found it hiding on top of the archway by the stairs leading up to the roof terrace.  

We sorted out as much as we could and got the garden back to some semblance of order and put to one side all the things that would need to be replaced - deep joy.  We neither of us felt like doing much as we were both exhausted and worried about Minnie and therefore worried as to what Charlie and Boo were up to so before I went to bed I went out to make sure I found them.

Can you believe that no one else on the estate were affected by the wind?