After the storm

Monday 28th October 2013

So St Jude has passed: St Jude being the storm which was named after St Jude’s day (which is today). In case you don’t know, St Jude is the patron saint of depression and lost causes, so someone at the Met Office haa a sense of humour. The worst of it passed over us in the early hours of the morning, only waking me once in the night. When I went to take Max to the vet, however, I was met with a scene of devastation in the front garden.

Yes, my pot plant had blown over in the night.

At the vets Max had more blood tests done, and was given a steroid injection to help with his dermatitis. I then bought him home and collected Jez before taking them both over Upton Heath. By this time the weather had improved considerably. We didn’t really see much damage from the storm: mainly a lot of tree debris around, a couple of fence panels blown down, and the odd branch down, like this one at the entrance to Upton Heath.

The rain had left lots of water on the Heath though, so Max was a happy boy.

As you can see, by now it was nice and sunny. Here’s Jez and Max in the little birch copse.

And Max standing by ‘Nobby’s Bench’ a little bit further along.

He was especially happy when he found that all his little pools of water are back, like this one.

And the pool by the boardwalk.

We came home via Creekmoor Ponds. Someone had told me there was a tree down blocking one of the paths, but we never found it. It meant I got to wash the mud off Max (he’d got really dirty playing along the Roman Road), and it gave me the opportunity to snap this photo.

The vet was supposed to phone me back in the afternoon with the results of Max’s blood test, but he didn’t get round to it, so we’ll have to wait until tomorrow.