Blown Away

The gales have finally blown themselves out, and the relative calm is uncanny. My property wasn't left unscathed either: I sat reading in the sunny summerhouse a few days ago while the wind ripped around me with terrifying force, when I noticed banging outside. I saw that part of the shingled roof had torn away and was flapping wildly, so brought some bricks over and carefully laid them on the shingles, trying to stop more damage from happening. It worked, up to a point. The bricks kept sliding off, but I replaced them and they held until the wind dropped. Luckily the summerhouse is under guarantee and will be repaired. The other gale-related issue was more worrying, but in the end that was solved too. A single slate banged with ferocious insistence against the roof of the house for three days, but I couldn't see where it was. Yesterday the builders who have been working across the lane for several months came and had a look, and they clocked it straight away. They brought their tallest ladder over, and the big one said to the smaller one: "You go up first, and if it's OK I'll come up too." "What if it's not OK?" I asked. "Do I look stupid?" he asked back. Such a sense of humour they had, bantering backwards and forwards. The big one told me about doing some work on the Old Rectory years ago when he came across a baby owl on the ground. Seeing the nest high up on the house, he climbed up and put the tiny ball of fluff back. Moments later it was on the ground again. This time he looked inside the nest and there was the baby's brutal sibling, eyes gleaming with hatred, ready to chuck its rival out again. "You should have switched them round," I said. But that's just nature, he pointed out. The toughest one will do anything to ensure it survives, and the parents are usually complicit.

He told me he used to cycle out here when he was a boy and play in Sarah's house which was a working farm. Apparently there's an old boy who runs the garage in Fram who used to live in my house, and they were playmates. "How much for that work?" I asked. £10 would be good, he said. I only have a £20 note, I told him: that's even better, he said, but he went and got me change. I've said it before but I love Suffolk men, at least the ones who come and do work for me. The other kind are lovely too, but they're generally blow-ins from London and the Home Counties, like me. But it was only after these two had gone that I realised my flies were undone.