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It's certainly been stormy - I saw two sailors in Waitrose yesterday. Must be rough on the coast for them to come so far inland.
You're not alone. I have in excess of 20 6ft posts and I've done £400 on timber since the start of December. Still not finished the last section I'm working on....
Hi Ho.....
Chairman of the Junior Hoilett appreciation society
I’m setting off from Lowestoft at 6:30, picking stowmarket up at 7:30, no New Year’s Eve drink for me, hopefully the journey won’t be too wet and windy.
favourite cheese mature Cheddar. FFS there is no such thing as the EPL
Every time there's a storm. Usually one guy has a tree fall on them and some sorry bastard gets stuck trying to retrieve something from a drain and drowns. Proper peasant's death that one.
Stefan Moore, Stefan Moore running down the wing. Stefan Moore, Stefan Moore running down the wing. He runs like a cheetah, his crosses couldn't be sweeter. Stefan Moore. Stefan Moore. Stefan Moore.
"IN 1859, after a series of disastrous gales in which many ships and lives were lost, Vice Admiral Robert FitzRoy of the British navy was given the difficult task of using available scientific knowledge to provide warnings of severe weather for the use of ships at sea.
To this end, FitzRoy organised a network of 40 weather stations around the Irish and British coastlines. They provided him with daily weather reports by telegraph, and although his forecasting methods were primitive by today's standards, by 1861 a system was in place. When gales were expected, warnings were telegraphed to ports and harbours around the country, and within 30 minutes appropriate signals were prominently displayed on shore to relay the word to passing ships. It was the beginning of shipping forecasts as we understand the term today.
The signals displayed were of a semaphore type, and were hoisted on a tall mast ashore to allow mariners to take note and exercise the necessary vigilance. If gales were expected from a generally northerly direction, for example, a black cone 3 feet high and 3 feet wide at the base, was raised upon the mast this was a "North Cone". If on the other hand the gales were expected from a southerly quarter, a "South Cone" was hoisted - a cone with its apex pointing downwards.
Other patterns had meanings which quickly became standard and widely understood; "a "drum" or cylinder, for example, was sometimes used to indicate successive gales from varying directions. At night red lights were used to indicate the relevant shape - a triangle of lights to form a cone, and four lights arranged in a square to indicate a drum. In all cases the signal was lowered when the wind dropped below gale force, provided no further gales were expected within six hours. A signal still in evidence after the wind had dropped, however, was to be interpreted as a sign that any abatement was only temporary. READ MORE
"Storm cones" continued in regular use at ports and coastguard stations around Britain until the early 1980s. They are responsible for the quaint phraseology heard until comparatively recently on British shipping forecasts which advised, for example, that "South cones are being hoisted". In general, however, the use of both the cones and the phraseology they engendered have died out with modern improvements in communications, although cones are still displayed occasionally by yacht clubs on a voluntary basis for the information of the casual passer by."
In a sad sign of the times we live in, apparently Ruth Jones of 'Gavin and Stacey' and Damon Allbran will be reading the Shipping Forecast tomorrow. I know, I'm a curmudgeonly old so and so...
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