Monday 10th March 2008.
After spending the night listening to the wind howling in through out big trees at home I was not looking forward to going to work this morning. You'll remember a couple of weeks ago, I said that one of the roof sheets had let go in a gale and had got a quote to replace it. My fears this morning were that due to an open section of roof, the wind would get inside and cause extra damage.
On arrival at the farm, I noticed that the wind was coming from the south and not the normal west, so the storm was hitting the end of the tunnel and not the from length as normal where the damage tends to happen. I walked down the length of the tunnels to inspect the damage and fortunately there was little chance until I got to tunnel 13. This is the one with the metre long split right on the ridge bar. The split is in a place where I cannot effect a repair and hoped the guys could do something with it when they replace the roof of tunnel 10. Well the wind had been at work on this split and it was starting to tear.
There was nothing I could do, so I returned to the concrete pond tunnel to start work. Latter I went out to the van to get something and noticed the transport tank had disappeared. On looking around I saw it 100 metres away in the stream. Fortunately it had sunk, if it had not it could of ended up in the Bristol channel, as the steam was at storm level and racing along.
Although the weather was far too rough to mess with it today, it did leave me scratching my head as to how I would get it out being full of water and a long way down?
As the afternoon came, so did the wind again, although it was rough all day, the afternoon brought the gale back, but this time the wind swung around to the west and the tunnels took the full beating. Although damage has just been limited to the two tunnels mentioned, the wind slowly stripped them back, with the smaller pieces disappearing into the distance.
The noise was incredible, the flapping polythene overpowering any of the normal metal creaking that is heard in bad weather. The flapping polythene was 'cracking' like giant sized whips, I never heard anything like it.
At least the holes are letting lots of breeze in to help dry the ponds! :)
