Brrrr.

[vilakins]

I thought yesterday's storm was pretty bad, but I didn't realise how bad. I battled the gales and rain with my trusty gust-buster umbrella and my new purple felt hat (brilliant buy from a craft market last weekend) which kept my hair dry, straight, and from blinding me, and I saw a few fallen branches but that was all. Then I found out that winds were up to 150kph, roofs lifted, windows blew in (I admit I was worried about ours; we live on a hill and they were rattling) and every time a bad gust came through, more houses lost power due to fallen lines. They even closed the Sky Tower because it was swaying; eep. It was also bloody cold (and still is) with a wind-chill temperature of 1.5C. And earlier this week I was in short sleeves with the fan on and thinking that spring might be back for more than three days.

I heard a prediction that we're going to get wind and rain till the end of January. Please, no. I don't want to miss summer. There was one where it rained all January and I got hit by severe SAD. OK, I never take holidays till February or March, but I hope we don't have to spend lots of money to go overseas just to get some sun. I love the Bay of Islands and was planning on that again this time, but we've been washed out there before and had to come home in disgust; it's always a risk.

OTOH some of the pohutukawa trees are already in bloom and that usually means a long and hot summer, not that we've had spring yet. So I can hope.