Storm prep

 I cancelled my ear microsuction appointment and rearranged it for Monday - living in a rural area with narrow lanes and loads of trees, it didn't seem sensible to expect husband to drive me to town this morning.

Well, it was a quiet night, didn't hear any wind until the last part of the night/early morning, and even then it's only been a few strong gusts.  It is supposed to get stronger this morning, up until lunchtime, we're not planning on going anywhere.  Betty will just have to go in the garden until later on this afternoon, when the weather has calmed down enough for husband to take her for a (probably short) walk.

Our neighbours 2 doors away have a huge conifer tree in their garden, much taller than the house, it engulfs the pole which has all the electricity cables leading to our 4 houses here that are owned by our farm landlords.  Well, the electricity company had finally arranged for the tree to be chopped down....the men are supposed to be coming to do it TODAY.  Somehow, I don't think that's going to happen!  Let's hope the tree isn't blown down and wrecks 2 of the houses - and if it does come down it'll bring the power cables down with it.  We are expecting a power cut anyway, we frequently get them here in any case.  We've already filled our vacuum flask with boiling water and charged up our phones, we have torches and plenty of candles.  We have a camping gas stove and several cans of gas for it, we also have plenty of blankets (both fleece and crocheted) in case the power is off for hours.  It's not actually very cold at the moment though, nor is it raining, just windy.  As I'm typing this, the wind is picking up now.  We wouldn't be at all surprised if our internet goes off as well - there's another big tree (loads of trees here) round the corner in the lane which presses on the internet cable (no fibre broadband here, we're too rural).  BT have been saying for years they'd come and prune/chop down the tree, but to date they haven't, I guess it's because we're such a tiny hamlet here with not many households.  I have internet on my phone, so if the home broadband goes off I can still be connected....unless the storm affects my phone wifi too.

In circumstances like this, I often think well our parents and grandparents didn't have all the mod cons we have, and they managed perfectly well, it was just a way of life for them.  So I'm sure we can do the same, we're just too used to having everything on tap (so to speak) and very few real hardships.

We had to take Betty back to the vets yesterday, she'd somehow split one of the claws on her back left foot right down the middle, very low down.  It was clearly bothering her, she kept lifting that foot up when standing and when sitting she was constantly licking and worrying at it.  It did look a bit pink and I was concerned that her constant licking might result in an infection.  The vet examined it, clipped the nail as best she could and wiped her foot over with some antiseptic.  She said although it's clearly sore, there's no infection at the moment, we're to just wipe it down with warm water when she comes back from a walk, try to stop her from the constant licking, and keep an eye on it.  They didn't even charge us at the vets, which was nice of them.  Betty seems to be feeling much happier now, she's hardly licking the foot at all and isn't lifting it up anymore.

Oddly, the wind seems to have dropped a bit again, so husband is just taking her out for a short walk during this lull.

I'll publish this now whilst we still have electricity!  Stay indoors and keep safe, everyone.

EDIT

Well, our electricity went off just after 9 am. I hope it's not going to be days before it's back on.