Thank You Jennifer

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Jennifer (@LovingMyBabies) very kindly commented on a photo I'd taken of a very sullen looking sky where she mentioned that she'd seen a similar sky just before a hurricane in the US. I responded telling her that we didn't often get hurricanes over here in the UK and the last one was back in 1987. This reminded me of that day. At the time Adam and I were living in a ground floor flat in the city of Norwich and, as Adam was a Hiab crane lorry driver, he was unable to work that day and buses weren't running into the centre of Norwich so I didn't go in either. We'd listened to the local news and the police were advising that nobody should go out. My office was about half an hour's walk but I took the police advice and didn't go in. I didn't see the point in risking being bonked on the head by a falling tree or tiles blowing off roofs. So we settled down to watch the TV when the power went off. All the flats on our estate had electric only so we were freezing cold as there was no heating, no light and no cooking facilities. However, Adam remembered that he had a UK Forces issue cooking' block' which was basically like a very large fire lighter which lasted for a considerable time. He struggled against the wind down to our garage which was some way away from our flat and set the block on an asbestos sheet (wouldn't get away with that now!). He boiled up a kettle of water and then said that we should pop round to some of our elderly neighbours to make sure they were OK. We struggled round battling against the wind to check Tony, Betty D, Betty C and Madge were OK and offered them hot water. As they had no heating, for those who had them, we filled up hot water bottles and then we gathered up flasks or tea pots and filled them up with hot water so they could have hot drinks. By the middle of the afternoon we still had no power so we then went round again and asked them if they had any tinned soup or baked beans etc that we could heat up for them so they had something warm to eat. Betty C didn't have anything so Madge said she'd got plenty of tins of soup and gave up one for Betty. Having made sure all OAP's had eaten, we then ensured they all had fresh hot water bottles and they went off happily to bed, as did we. Thankfully by the next morning, although the wind was quite strong, the power was back on. It never ceases to amaze me how communities come together when we have heavy snow, gale force winds etc. So glad we were able to help.