In which we experience weather

Orages violents

It was whilst taking impromptu shelter under the hangar, crouched behind an empty barrique, that I realised I’d taken a hit.

A stinging sensation radiated up my leg from the site of impact on my inside right calf.

I peeked out from behind the barrel, weighing my chances of making it to the house. It was only a 30 metre or so sprint, max; but then again I was only in shorts and t-shirt and wearing slip on croc-like garden shoes.

---

So I found myself on the evening of 25 June during a monumental hail and thunder storm.

The promised clouds finally started to arrive a little later than expected, about 8pm. Things began with the ominous appearance of Mammatus clouds. Elwood was not happy (as you can hear in the video below).

These harbingers of nearby storms scudded past bringing a huge weather front in their wake. I went around to our terrace to get a better view. The sky was darkening by the second and thunder flashed and rumbled in the clouds. Our resident swallows swooped in and out of the barn, anxiously.

As the wind continued to whip up I noticed that the cover of the pool cover was already halfway off and about to blow away.

Yes, that’s right, our pool cover does indeed have its own cover: basically a long, thin white plastic sheet that protects it from the sun when it’s on the roller and not covering the pool.

I run outside to take it off and stow it in the poolhouse, then try to make fast the OG pool cover to the roller as it had unspooled a few turns.

Then it hits.

Trees swaying prodigiously from side to side causing leaves and small branches to go flying through the air. What starts as small, irrelevant hailstones smacking the pool terrace swiftly become pea-sized, then marble-sized, then golf-ball sized.

I’m stretching the elasticated cord that wraps around the roller and trying, and failing, to tie it off.

It’s at at this point that I know I am in trouble.

I run for cover under the hangar a mere 15 metres away. This offers mild protection but the force of the wind pushes the projectiles almost horizontally, missing the roof; thus the aforementioned wine-barrel-crouching-strategy.

As the first wave of hail subsides I eventually make a break for it, sprint-hobbling around the side of the house and onto the safety of our covered porch.

Only to realise as I turn around that five of the six chickens are still outside and are not sheltering under the hen house.

FUCK.

---

Ok, quick - run inside.

Grab an ill-fitting rain jacket that turns out to be H’s, put on some better shoes, then detour downstairs via the workshop to pick up a bona fide hard hat.

Sprint-hobble out the back door and up the slope to the chicken enclosure and start chasing.

Oh to have some third person footage of these moments.

Hailstones smashing all around. Nonplussed and oblivious chickens scuttling about whilst I grasp alternately at thin air and occasional tailfeathers.

A farcical cycle plays out as I snatch a bird, run round the front and deposit it inside the coop, then successfully grab another and do the same, only to realise that one of them has come back outside.

More and multiple expletives.

I get them all inside, or at least what I hope is them all, as when I put my head in the egg collection hatch I can’t see anything as it’s too dark.

I make do with a rudimentary touch count amidst much clucking and assure myself we have a full complement.

Then as I withdraw my head… a huge, visceral, ear-popping, bass-laden and very nearby CRACK.

H is shouting at me from the steps of the house to immediately remove myself from the situation, although in more rough and ready language.

Close the chicken hatches and RUN.

I make it inside the house, drenched and although in relatively serious discomfort in the leg department, with no further injury.

The power of course is now out - coinciding, H tells me - with the huge strike that just hit.

Gulp.

---

Our power was restored 21 hours later, with no lasting damage to anything on our land as far as we could tell.

Reading the local news the next day we experienced a Derecho.

Although I slightly dramatise the above for effect, this was serious stuff.

Having been stood outside in the worst of it I’ve been thinking about my previous life as a civil contingencies/emergency management mandarin over the last few days. Not least because this was firmly in red-warning/danger-to-life territory and Méteo France only issued an orange alert.

But then again I’m well shot of impact matrices these days. I’m 95% glad I don’t have the relentless stresses of my old job anymore, but for sure I miss the adrenaline and camaraderie it brought in situations akin to this one.

So thanks to all the local responders, not least at Enedis, who manage the electricity grid here; they will have had a very busy night and next day in the control room and all over the place in the field.