The wind last night was the loudest and strangest I have ever heard outside of a typhoon. The latter was a frequent visitor when I lived in Japan, but houses there are set up with shutters which, even though they bang and rattle, give a semblance of safety when the storm is in full swing. Not so here, my paper-thin walls and old aluminium windows a seeming invitation to chaos and the gathering Lords of Misrule.

The sound of the gale last night was both intense and melancholic, as if an angry depressive was trying to batter down the door. Moreover, it stayed at the same volume throughout and the morning, though sunny, seemed like the scene of a minor disaster area. A tree was across the road around the corner and everywhere, the desiccated remains of leaves and branches were scattered like shrapnel. And always I am reminded of Ted Hughes.

....The house

Rang like some fine green goblet in the note
That any second would shatter it. Now deep
In chairs, in front of the great fire, we grip
Our hearts and cannot entertain book, thought,

Or each other. We watch the fire blazing,
And feel the roots of the house move, but sit on,
Seeing the window tremble to come in,
Hearing the stones cry out under the horizons.


from Wind