Scouts in bondage

I forgot to say the other day that among the second-hand book sale tables, I found a book called Scouts in Bondage, which turned out not to be about scouts in bondage at all. It was a book about misleading book titles, which suggests that there is another book called Scouts in Bondage that is also not about scouts in bondage for it to be included in the book I saw. So that was something.

We had something of a storm on Saturday night. We hit 11 on the Beaufort scale, which Wikipedia helpfully illustrates like so. That is indeed what it looked (and felt) like. I do enjoy the Beaufort scale.

I surveyed the damage on Sunday morning: my potted yucca had fallen over and squashed some sweet peas, one manky old fence paling had come off, and I slipped over on the wet tiles and pulled an abdominal muscle (which is better today). Not what you'd call incalculable loss. I went out to buy the paper later and found that I had been quite lucky, passing neighbours looking at the remains of their fences and trees and in one case, half a caravan. I also went down to have a look at the river, which was well stirred and covered with murky sea foam, like froth on a dishwater cappuccino. The little town where my mother and John live was without electricity for 24 hours (my mother and John themselves weren't without electricity for that long, because they came in and used mine spent the day with me). Their neighbour had to chainsaw his way out of his front door because it was blocked by a fallen tree.

Then again, places that aren't the City by the Sea are in flood and partly evacuated, so we're all quite lucky. It's hard to enjoy a good grizzle about a partly flooded car-park when the news is covering the Christchurch earthquake.