Wow! Wild wind.

Monday 14th September: Happy birthday Felicity. As always we rang the skifield's ansaphone just after 7am to find out if they were open. The report said it was already 10 degrees! By now Edward was sneezing and Peter had a barking cough so we decided not to ski this morning.
While I packed up the motorhome Steve and the boys played footie again, and by 10am we were ready to leave. We drove to Fairlie, the motorhome being buffeted by the increasingly blustery winds along the way. When we stopped at Fairlie we were astonished at how warm it was. 21 degrees and only 11am. Steve took our skis into the Ski Shack to be waxed and we went to the local park for half an hour while they were being done. By now Roundhil skifield was shut due to high winds so we were glad we hadn't made the long trek up to the skifield earlier. The boys played in the domain's playground and we had a drink and snack.
From there we drove to the new home. As we went over the Pareora Gorge we met a flock of sheep being herded along the road by a farmer on a quad bike and dogs. Once home we had some lunch and got on with removing the old carpets. While we were there it became warmer and warmer and the wind got stronger.
We headed back into town to cook tea and walked Edward to Cubs. Once back we emptied the motorhome and Peter and Jonathan had a bath. Steve put them off to bed while I went off to collect Edward from Cubs.
As the evening went on the wind got stronger and stronger and we hoped the roof would stay on. At 10pm it was still 17 degrees. Even at midnight the wind was powerful and we were glad we weren't out at the new house. It was really blowing a hooligan!
One photo is of one of the trees in our new garden. When we saw it on Friday it was in bud, then by Monday it had exploded into flower. The other is of the sheep passing us on the gorge road.