A very scary moment and there goes the aerial!

I suppose it was foretold. The coming of the second great storm. Both of us were very cynical about the prediction as too many times in the past the weather forecast had been wrong  (especially about the first big storm of the Autumn ) so watching the BBC news and being told of the gale force winds in Scotland spreading down towards Nottingham, and the possible flooding round the East coast because of very high tides, we really didn't believe that we would get anything other then a gentle breeze here in the Midlands.  So this morning, with the occasional  twig dropping on the roof because the wind had picked up a little, I took Jade for her usual walk.  If I'd known then what I know now I wouldn't have made the big mistake of walking along a lane toward the Nottingham canal. The trees lined the length and started swaying alarmingly. It was then, when I was about half way along, that an almighty gust of wind grabbed hold of the boughs causing leaves, twigs and small branches to came crashing down all around me. Talk about frightened. Jade stopped dead and really didn't want to go on any further but I knew of a gap in the hedge several yards away that would take me onto scrub land away from the trees. I upped and legged it as fast as I could pulling Jade along with me. I made it without mishap, thank goodness, and then, hearing a loud crack, turned and watched as a large branch came down just a few feet in front of where Jade had stopped dead. Makes you wonder if Jade had sensed something and was trying to warn me! I wish I'd taken a photo but I was to scared to go back in case more branches fell. Needless to say I abandoned the idea of walking along the Nottingham Canal, made my way out of the scrub land by Anchor bridge, over the Erewash canal and high tailed it back to the boat. No sooner was I on board and telling my tale to Ian then we heard another loud crash and rushing to the back of the boat noticed that our aerial was lying in the water! Ian managed to fish it out by grabbing hold of the aerial cable. Thank goodness for the cable 'cause it saved it from a watery grave! So the question was what to do with it. We couldn't mount it back on the roof as by now the breeze had increased to a gale. Nothing for it but try to attach it to a scaffold pole which held a security light and find a long cable to reach the center of the roof.. 

Normally the aerial is held in place with the top box. But with the box removed we relied on the sun shade base to keep it in place. Bungees attached to our roof mushrooms and hand rail should have done the job.. Obviously not a good idea at all.

It's to be mounted on the scaffold pole to the right of the picture.

Apologies for the white blob. Must have had a mucky lens! Hopefully the aerial will now stay in one place!

Within hours the wind had strengthened so much that with every gust our roof was being bombarded with debris and talk about rocking and rolling. Seems like this time the BBC weather forecasters had got it right after all!

The willow showing how strong the gusts were. Photo taken from Anchor Bridge

Normal water flow cascading over the lock gate and.....

with the wind getting underneath

Our mooring is surrounded on two sides with trees. Good job the leaves have gone because the strong gusts could easily have brought one or two of them down right on top of us.

And finally:-