The news today is full of storm- and flood-related disasters. Stormy seas have washed away a part of the structure supporting the railway line in Dawlish, and the Somerset levels continue to take the brunt of the flooding. Closer to home, trees have fallen and are blocking roads and there are about 1,300 homes without power.

We have been fortunate. Gale force wind and rain lashed the house – or rather bungalow – from yesterday afternoon through till this morning. I feared for the roof at one point, but all seems to be holding together at the moment.

I really wish that some of our trees would blow down, though, without causing any hurt or damage of course. Our plot of just under an acre is surrounded by overgrown conifers. At a guess, they were planted around 30-odd years ago, and kept in passable order until about 10 years ago. Since then, each cutback has revealed more and more dead wood, so we stopped trimming. Now they just go upwards and outwards. You can see a few of them in the photo. The view would be much better if they weren’t there.

Since the weekend, however, I am even more determined to get rid of the blasted things. It has always been a part of the long-term plan to cut them down, so The Other Half decided to take it slowly until we can really get to work on the garden/plot (more on that another time). So a few times a week, he goes out armed with chainsaw and suitable protective gear to harvest wood for the fire. I’m told this is a man thing.

On Sunday, the inevitable happened. Ever so fortunately, he had stopped the chainsaw. Long story short, he fell backwards downhill and landed on his back on a tree stump. I am doing my best not to think about what might have been. But the afternoon ended with a trip in the ambulance to the local A&E. Discharged several hours later with heavy duty painkillers, there is thankfully nothing broken though he remains in quite a lot of pain and there’s a tremendous bruise brewing up.

I have digressed, but am coming back to the topic of the weather. This morning as we drove to the local surgery in Laugharne (5 miles away) to get a prescription for a top-up of painkillers, it was close to high tide. The car park below Laugharne Castle was flooded. I would like to point out that these are not black and white or sepia images, and have not had any colour adjustments – it was simply a very grey day.