h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

We don't have nearly enough storms you know.

I've taken the opportunity this morning to spend about two hours down on the seafront enjoying the battering of the high winds, and standing amazed at the sight of the steel-grey boiling sea.

The swell as it rolls in is about 10 foot high - and on a high tide to boot - but as it hits the shelf at the start of the beach it rears up to twice that height as a boiling mountain of surf that comes crashing down on to the shingle. It makes a fantastic noise and the air is full of salt spray.

Couple that with a high wind and alternate periods of bright blue sky and then drenching showers, it makes for wild morning.

I've come back home soaked through, about three times over, and having had a thoroughly wonderful time.




It's back to bright sunshine right now, so I'll probably get a bite to eat for breakfast and then head on up to the park to see what damage the wind has wrought there.

Yes well, sleeping as I do in a jutting-out bedroom with three exposed walls, and a constantly-rattling-against-its-anchor security gate keeping me awake all night, I'm not-so enamoured of windy weather as your good self.

I thought it was all rather noisy. I'll have to go out and inspect for damage soon too. There was one particularly loud "pranggg" noise this morning that I didn't like the sound of at all ...

I recall going down to the sea front one night when I was living in Littlehampton to watch the waves during a storm. Got asked by a pair of filth who were patrolling, what was I doing down by the prom on my own in such ghastly weather and had to explain that when you're a kid and you go to the coast with your parents of a warm summer day, the sea isn't doing the sort of things you normally only see on television when they're showing waves crashing over the sea wall, and I wanted to see it for myself, up close and personal.

It is very, very impressive.

Speak for yourself an F1 has taken up wind tunnel testing in my front garden this winter.

I went to Shoeburyness on Friday - the weather was absolutely lovely where I was, but I only managed 35 mins walking along the seafront because it was so windy. The tide was out, so no spray though!

I'd spray yesterday and the nearest coast is 6 miles away. When you can taste the salt in Bathgate you know it is windy.

We love going to the beach during storms! The waves are simply amazing then! We had 13' waves the other night!

We woke up in Southampton on Sunday morning with not an inkling that anything had gone on. We took S's dog for a walk along the appropriately named river Hamble, and were astounded to find how flooded it was.

It wasn't until I got home this afternoon to find my fence had blown down and shed roof half ripped off that I realised there had been quite a big storm! While most of the time I'd be out in the thick of it with GD, on this occasion I'm inclined to agree with Annie that the whole night was a complete pain in the bum. I can't sit on the fence, because I don't have one any more...