A Week-End of Extreme Weather

February this year has thrown extremes of weather at us.  Its not been particularly cold, but there have been severe storms where most of the country (but particularly the South West, Wales and the Thames Valley) have taken more or less constant battering from the high winds and continuous heavy rainfall. A lot of people are trying to rebuild their homes and their lives as a consequence.

Even though we have been starting to get a little used to the storms, last Friday's was probably one of the worst - during the night the wind howled and the windows rattled and many local roads became flooded - and remain so.

Saturday was a day of "recovery" and then Sunday was pure bliss.  The wind had dropped right down and the sun was out.  We went for a mid-morning walk along the beach and couldn't believe how many people were out so early for a Sunday morning in February - joggers, dog walkers, families all out experiencing the weather conditions they had all been craving for days.  Even the seagulls seemed to be full of joy, bobbing about on the gentle waves - and judging by the anglers lined up along the beachfront, it seemed that the strong winds had brought an abundance of "seafood" into shore.

Mr Cocopopia tries a spot of jewellery making from nature's bounty

It made for interesting walking, strolling along the beach with so many strange objects and examples of sea life washed ashore but also quite sad to see some of the carnage such as "mermaid's purses" (shark egg cases), damaged clam shells and lobster, crab and starfish sections.  There was also plenty of seaweed scattered around.  

I'd taken my camera but forgotten to grab the batteries which had just been re-charged, so experimented with my very basic phone camera instead.  I don't own a smartphone, but a cheap and slightly old-fashioned Nokia, but I was quite happy with the pictures it produced as an emergency back-up.