Just when we thought Spring was on its way and we had seen the worst of the winter weather, we were shown how unpredictable Mother Nature can be, when Gale force Arctic Winds and Snow (we guess winds up to speeds in excess of 60 miles per hour ) batter Sensone throughout the night, with little respite this morning although the wind speeds are much less, more like 10 miles per hour now.
Large old trees unceremoniously ripped by their roots from the ground, one close to the house bringing down the electricity pylon and ripping a large stone and part of the building away. We are so fortunate as we did sleep through some of the night and it is only this morning when we opened our front door to the carnage. It will take some clearing up but on a positive note we will have plenty of fire wood once we have cleared up.
The immediate problem is we have no electricity, a hole in the wall where the electric wire was pulled from the wall, a large stone hangs in mid air, the wind moving it from side to side. I had woken at five this morning to find two downstairs windows blown open, Jack Frost had left his imprints on the glass and I struggled against the force of the wind to close the windows. Plant pots strewn across the living room floor and valued family heirlooms broken in their wake.
I have to say I felt safe within the walls of Sensone but now realise how lucky we were, if one of the trees had fallen towards the house instead of away from it, it could have had some severe consequences for the house. But we are thankful that that was not the case. For all our friends we are safe and well, looking forward to the challenges that face us today as we piece together the repairs.
Living this closely to Mother Nature, in these extreme circumstances is thrilling to say the least, challenging and really does make us realise just how vulnerable we are, and how much our lives rest in the hands of God.
Our road to Renaio covered in hard packed icy snow, makes our passage for help a little difficult but on reaching Diana’s house, we realize how lucky we have been when on the television we seen the carnage.
We hope all our friends around the mountain and Barga are safe and well.
