It’s 7.30am on Thursday and I gather my boys for a pow-wow.
“I know it’s the school holidays but we won’t be going anywhere for two or three days,” I said.
“There’s a storm coming and our area has a red warning – that means there could be a real danger to life – like, you know, actual death, because the storm is so fierce.”
Silence.
I wondered if I’d overdone it. You never know the piece of information you depart to their innocent ears, that could scar them for life.
Maybe they’d develop anemophobia, sometimes called ancraophobia – the phobia of wind. The phobia may be mild or severe and is often life-limiting.
I needn’t have worried. Guthrie, six, spoke first. “Brilliant! Can I run two laps round the house naked and you give me £2?”
The next morning, the garage had flooded. We had a moat round the house and the water supply to the house went off.
No showers, no baths, no dishwasher, no machine washes, no toilet flushing… with three young boys… for four days.
I was glad I’d got them out for adventures when we could, earlier in the week. On Tuesday, we’d visited the Scottish Deer Centre in Fife.
What a place – from feeding the deer to huge varieties of other animals from birds of prey to otters and wolves – not to mention epic play areas and a giant bouncing pillow.
My abiding memory, however, came as we paid our entrance fee.
“Forget the price list,” the lady told us.
“We’re working on donations – asking people to pay what they can. Not every family can afford a day out with the kids and this is our way of helping it happen.”
Credit and thanks to the owners and management for making this difference.
Remembering victims of Storm Babet
All of our storm gripes and groans suddenly paled into insignificance, however, with news of tragedy.
Wendy Taylor, 57, had been swept away by the river at Glen Esk and died.
You could feel the heartache in the tributes paid to a woman, mother and grandmother “beautiful inside and out”.
And the devastation of the family of John Gillan, 56, a painter and decorator from Arbroath, who died when his vehicle was struck near Forfar.
No longer was Storm Babet a distant thing we’d all ‘get through’ – it was something which had taken the lives of people in our community.
It must seem cruel that the storm passes, houses are repaired and life goes on, when existence can never continue as before for the families and friends of these people and others.
Our thoughts and prayers are with you all.
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