A humdinger of a storm...

The worst of the storm seems to be over now, although the wind is still pummeling the apartment building. We only had code orange here in the south east, the rest of the country had code red. A woman in Amsterdam got killed when a tree got blown over on top of her as she walked down the Heerengracht. The man who walked beside her got wounded. I think she is the only casualty from the winds that had gusts of 135 km per hour. Lots of trees got blown over onto roads and rail tracks and roofs of houses. Roofs of houses got blown off too. Train traffic is stalled and European flights from Schiphol were cancelled.

 

The storm turned into a hurricane when it got to the island of Vlieland. I don't yet know what damage it did there. Here in the neighborhood lots of tree branches were blown down. It was a challenge to walk in, but lots of fun too. Whenever I turned a corner, the wind whipped around me and tried to push me back into another direction. I wasn't afraid at any time, and I think I had no need to be. I didn't actually think of it.

 

I have no hairdo left to speak of, and I think it's not important today. Any old hairdo will do. I just run my fingers through my hair when I come home from my walk with Tyke and consider that good enough until I go out next. It's a good thing I have short hair. You mustn't get any sort of idea that you are Farah Dibah, because that will only work if you are ensconced in a palace in Persia and protected from the elements in the loving embrace of the Shah. And we all know how that fairytale ended.

 

Tyke sat around staring at the window, trying to figure out what all that noise was about. It did last an awfully long time. He is only used to relatively short thunderstorms. I think the fact that he is so much at ease now must mean the storm has died down, and it is true that when I look outside, I do see that the trees are not shaking back and forth anymore. They are merely gently moving around. That means I can take him for a walk without being bundled up like an Eskimo. We'll go see how many leaves are left on the trees. The majority will have gotten blown of, I am sure. I will have to kick some around.