The North Wind doeth blow

 

View from my bedroom window

Storm Arwen tore through my wood on Friday night, and caused very significant damage.

There is no significant damage to the house; certainly nothing which compromises its integrity. The wind turbine is still standing and still working. The cattle shed is also undamaged.

A strip about 15 to 20 metres wide through the wood from the Summer Palace glade to the blow from three years ago has lost substantially all its trees: it is just utter chaos. This is about quarter to a third of the whole area in the wood, and includes some of the largest trees. The summer palace is entirely gone. The wreck is immediately behind the house and three trees fell on the house.

Around the area where the trees are all fallen, there are further trees which are still standing but unstable. What remains of the wood that's largely unaffected are

* A strip around five metres wide along the east side of the wood;
* A strip of at least 15 metres wide along the south edge of the wood;
* A more substantial area of at least thirty metres wide along the west edge, although this is affected by a much smaller blow in the south-west corner which happened five years ago.

The fallen trees are going to have to be hauled/winched out into Commons Meadow, which means I'm going to need a new 12 foot gate. But actually that fence is going to need work anyway, because one of the strainer posts was braced back to a tree in the wood, and consequently part of the fence is demolished.

There are more pictures here.

Storm

My summer residence is supported on seven spruce trees. In the time I've been here - since early May - the BBC have twice forecast hurricane force winds. The first time, I abandoned ship - but they exaggerated, it was only storm force. This time, I haven't abandoned, and it's now too late to do so. The wind on the hilltop is too high to safely evacuate the cats. I suspect, and hope, that the BBC are exaggerating again, but earlier this morning I described the wind as the second strongest I'd ever experienced. That's no longer true.

It literally is not possible for a grown man to stand upright in the gusts on our hilltop now. I know that, because I've just been there. So I'm going to have to stay put. On the plus side, my wood shows no evidence at all of windfall trees. So far as I can see, no tree of the present generation has ever blown down. And although I have thinned a little, I've been careful to preserve the green edge of the wood - I really think it's wind-firm.

However, the seven trees that support the summer palace are - like all the other trees in the wood - swaying with alarming amplitude, but, of course, with different frequencies. That gives the platform an uncomfortably sharp, unpredictable motion, like a hovercraft in a short chop. I think it's safe enough. The ropes aren't going to break. As I said I don't think the trees will fall; in fact the trees supporting the platform are less likely to go than others, since they are coupled together and thus none of them can sway to the amplitude they would alone.

I've taken down one of the side-walls the summer palace had, to allow the wind to blow through unobstructed. Having less of a sail, I hope, will reduce the risk of damage. I'm still a little concerned about the roof going.

I've pitched my tent a little bit away in the wood so that, if the summer palace becomes uninhabitable, I have somewhere to retreat to... but actually I think the worst I'm risking is seasickness. The worst of the wind is expected to be through by nightfall. I think I'm all right. The cats clearly don't like the conditions and Ivan in particular is clingy, but I think they're OK.

Things I miss

The Summer Palace

This summer of homelessness - even if I chose it, even if it is a gamble which still may pay off with something wonderful - has been tougher than I expected. This essay is to acknowledge that, and to celebrate those aspects of our modern western lives which actually are to be valued. So here's a list of things I miss...

Being warm

It's a fortnight before midsummer, late morning, and my fingers are so cold as I type this that the joints hurt. My bedding is damp again, not because of rain driving in - except during the big storm, it hasn't - but just because of the humidity in the air. I do have a little woodstove - borrowed - but because I have no walls it's ineffective either at raising the temperature or at cooking, so I don't use it much.

Closely related to being warm,

Hot water on tap

I'm a person who likes to be clean. I like to have a hot bath every night. I like to wash my dishes in hot water. Lots of hot water. Here, I haul every drop of water I use - at minimum from the water trough on the far side of my croft, but in practice usually from the farm, because the trough is open and therefore not clean. I use the wheelbarrow, so I'm not actually carrying it, but it's still five hundred metres over the hilltop; hard work. To heat it, I have my small kettle and my small gas stove. A cupful or two is easy to heat. A bathful (even if I had a bath, which I don't)? Impossible.

And next down the list

Dry boots

I have boots, of course. I have two pairs of boots which cope reasonably well with wet weather. But in the long periods of wet weather I've had I've twice got to the point where both pairs were wet. Boots are important. Wet boots are miserable. And drying boots out once they're wet comes back to being warm.

These are the critical things. Of course, there are things I have which if I lacked them would be critical. I can get clean water. I can afford food. I have friends. I have the National Health Service. And I do have security of tenure - I own this land, no-one can throw me off it. Less critically, but contributing to my quality of life, I also have technology - my laptop, my phone, my camera - and somewhere I can go to recharge their batteries.

Less important stuff

So having dealt with the critical things, what are the other things I miss?

Water on tap

Digging a track down the field and laying in a water pipe is going to cost a big chunk of the money I have, and it can't be a priority. I may not be able to do it straight off. But using water without having to think about whether there's enough, whether it will run out, what the cost of fetching it will be... that's a luxury.

Artificial light

OK, I have a storm lantern. Just at present it's out of oil and I ought to get more but haven't. But it doesn't throw a lot of light anyway, so I don't use it much... of course, it's summer. Of course, it never really gets dark at this time of year. In winter, artificial light may feel more important. Just at present, it's surprisingly minor. But... over the year as a whole... over the year as a whole, rather to be desired.

Broadband

I have had a computer network connection into my home since 1984. Then, it was a 300 baud modem; then, it didn't connect to the Internet, because JANET had not yet been connected to the Internet; JANET ran on coloured books over X.25 rather than on TCP/IP. I used network chat to communicate with my profoundly deaf tutor. Later, I ran UUCP over a 2800 baud modem; it wasn't until 1993 that I had a PPP connection feeding real-time Internet protocol - and the then new Web - into my home.

Of course, I still have a network connection. The GPRS connection that my phone provides is far faster than those old modems. But in the meantime, the Web has developed to assume fast links. Web pages are graphics heavy, and call down complex JavaScript libraries or Flash animations. Browsing the Web on a slow connection is far more painful than it was seventeen years ago. I don't need a broadband link. I can live without it. But... it would be nice.

Electricity

To get broadband here, I'm going to have to relay wifi over the hill. That means I'd need electricity in two places - one on the hilltop to drive the relay, and one in my home to receive it. Trecking over the hill to recharge laptop and phone batteries once a day - as I do now - won't cut it. On the other hand a mains connection is out of the question, since I can't afford one, let alone two. Laying cable is a non-starter, not only because of cost but also because of lightning strike issues. The hilltop relay can probably be solar powered, and reasonably low cost. But if I'm going to power a transciever at my home, I might as well have electricity for other purposes - powering a computer, for one; powering a bit of electric light, for another. So a wind turbine of about 1600 watts - and batteries to buffer its output - is the sensible way to go. And that doesn't come cheap. So electricity is a nice to have. It isn't a priority. But I would like it.

On living rough with cats

Ivan and Penny in the Summer Palace

We're all familiar with the image of an urban rough sleeper with his mongrel on a string. Rough sleepers commonly have dogs, and it's easy to understand why. A familiar animal - an animal which offers some affection, some uncritical regard, and, at night, some warmth - has to help a person cope with the extremely tough life a rough sleeper has to cope with.

But you don't typically see rough sleepers with cats. Cats are different from dogs; they are much more self sufficient: specialist individual predators, able to feed themselves adequately in most British landscapes. A closely related species is even native. Cats don't, in fact, need us. When they choose to live with us it's from choice. That choice is certainly based on some simple pragmatic considerations. If we have the resources we can provide regular palatable food. If we have homes, we can provide comfort and warmth - which cats love - and a degree of security. We also, if we have homes, provide stability of place - a fixed base, a hub for a hunting ground. Cats do like a familiar hunting ground.

Cats are different from us - so different that any attempt to think ourselves imaginatively into their minds is at best uncertain. Do they feel affection, bonding, identification with us? To some extent it seems that they do. It certainly comforts me to believe that my cats love me. And their behaviour does suggest this.

Ivan regularly comes up to me and writhes on his back inviting me to tickle his tummy. Penny is cuddled up to me as I type this, and often chooses to sit close to me. When I walk through the woods both of them usually come with me, and often when I leave the wood now they follow - something which is becoming problematic. Today, Penny twice followed me all the way to the farm - mainly, I think, to hunt rabbits on the hilltop. At night, both sleep on (and Ivan frequently in) my bed. Of course, part of this is warmth. Now, at lunchtime on the 5th of June, close to mid day and close to mid summer, I'm wearing six layers of clothing (including two wool jerseys and a jacket with a fleece lining). I'm wearing a hat and gloves. I'm cold.

The cats have, of course, fur coats. Penny has an exceptionally soft, thick one. And, today when the wind is in the east, I'm sure there are warmer places in the wood than this. So I don't believe that it is just - or even mainly - for warmth that the cats stay with me.

But that is the point. Home for us, now, is this rough platform in the wood, sheltered from the rain by a tarpaulin, from the wind not at all. It isn't comfortable. It isn't warm. It is in a fixed place - one I own, one I cannot be evicted from. And that fixed place is in a wonderful hunting environment for small predators. There are mice and voles aplenty, and one of them (I think Ivan, but I'm not yet sure) has started to bring home rabbits. It's also (although I doubt the cats can know this) a very safe place for them. The nearest road is half a mile away. There are no traps or snares or poisons on my land. And I am able to feed them - on food they like - regularly and reliably. Finally, there's no competition here, except from the badgers. While several of my co-conspirators have dogs, none have cats. I haven't seen or heard another cat since we arrived here.

But the question is, will they stay? Why should they? All around my land are hunting territories equally good, in which they could easily find themselves courie holes equally comfortable. Indeed, neighbouring territories have more rabbits - there are none locally here. As they increasingly follow me further from the croft they are seeing these potentially better territories. Hunting rabbits is not only clearly more fun than hunting other prey, the rabbits are also clearly more palatable. Rabbits which are brought home are always partially eaten, whereas mice are often left intact. As they catch more rabbits, they're less dependent on me for palatable food.

There's a problem in that. Between the wood where we live and the hilltop with its rabbits is my hay meadow. For me, it's a glorious place; for the cats it's huge and hard to cross. They can't see over the grass, so it's hard to navigate. They can cross it using a curious bounding run which rather resembles dolphins at play - leaping out of the grass high enough to get a glimpse of the horizon. But that's clearly strenuous. The meadow is also clearly - especially when a kite flies over fast and low, as one did this afternoon - a very scary place. Consequently they both prefer to have me with them when they cross the meadow, and will sit on the fenceposts and call until I escort them.

So I am anxious about them leaving. I fear that they may find a place closer to the rabbit warren which is (at least) as comfortable for as the Summer Palace. It would be a big deal for me; I have lost or abandoned so much else in my life, they're pretty important. I need to get a more secure and comfortable home for myself before winter, because in bad weather the Summer Palace is pretty tough; but far more than that I need to provide them with a more secure and comfortable home.

Tactical retreat in the face of overwhelming force

Well, we're no longer in the Summer Palace. Of our twenty days there, it rained on nineteen and blew a gale on five. Last night, the BBC was forecasting gusts of 82 miles per hour - literally hurricane force.

By dawn it was obvious that I couldn't really depend on the roof surviving; even if it did, sheeting rain was falling and fine spray was blowing through the Summer Palace, making everything wet. The shipping forecast was more soberly predicting force ten, and the BBC's 6am domestic forecast had dropped it's prediction to only 70 mph. If I'd just been myself I'd probably have tried to hold out, but the idea of trying to catch the cats after the roof had gone didn't appeal, and I decided to abandon ship while I could. I started to make things as secure as I could.

Neadless to say I didn't have the cat's transport box down at the summer palace. Ivan, who'd slept cuddled in with me all night, was still under the downie, so I emptied the cooking box and unceremoniously bundled him into it. I wheelbarrowed him over the hill to the farm; at the top I could barely stand.

With Ivan in the car I took the transport box back. I was wearing my waterproof sailing jacket with the hood pulled right down as tight as it would go; I'd deliberately left my glasses off for fear they blow away. The rain on my face was like buckshot. Needless to say, the cat  box blew clean out of the barrow.

I'd expected Penny to be hard to catch, but she'd been sleeping in her usual place in the structure of the roof, which was by now moving quite a lot, and when I called to her she climbed up through the roof structure to where she could see me. She was distressed and clearly couldn't get down by herself, so I hauled her out and bundled her into the box. Then I took down the one wall I have at the palace because it was acting as a sail and clearly making matters worse, bundled my bedding into plastic bags and hauled all my furniture into the centre of the platform, covering it with a strongly lashed tarpaulin before leaving. The roof may go but I don't think the platform will.

We're staying with friends for a couple of days while the weather abates and I get stuff dry, but then we'll go back. But after this a more permanent structure becomes more urgent - it won't wait for autumn, or for planning permission.

The Summer Palace

Tonight is our third night in the summer palace. The experience is throwing up problems I didn't expect, as well as ones I did. I have an urgent need to find somewhere for a midden for food waste - far enough away that it doesn't attract rats to the summer palace (although the cats would deal with them), near enough that it's practical to use.

Clothes don't dry in the wood - there isn't enough air movement and there isn't enough sunlight. So I'm going to have to put a clothesline out in the meadow somewhere. That also has implications for my living economy: if clothes do not dry, I must be very careful about getting wet. Fortunately, I haven't yet had a problem with rain blowing into the palace - despite two very wet windy nights; so I think I'm probably OK there.

Although I do love the palace's airiness and sense of openness to the elements, I think I will have to make it solid walls sooner or later. Just sitting, it's pretty cold. Of course, I don't yet have a chimney for my wood stove, so I can't yet use that; but even if I could, with no walls the warmth would just blow away. I'm as concerned about the cats being uncomfortable as myself - if they don't like it here, they could just leave me. And I'd hate that.

Fortunately they're settling reasonably well. Ivan is a bit clingy, and they both follow me about wherever I go in the wood (but, interestingly, not out in the pasture). But they seem quite calm and spend a lot of time playing together among the trees.

We've had our first visitors. Alice and Meg came over just to see the place, and Finn came to borrow my wheelbarrow, and stayed for a coffee.

Unexpected plusses, I think we have badgers in the wood. We've found a couple of gaps in the bottom of the fence, and the cats have been very interested in the smell of them. By one of them there was a large and well-clawed fresh paw print. I've not yet found evidence of a set though, and am surprised they don't find the wood too wet.

I've been cooking on my little camping gas stove, and am pleasantly surprised how well that's going; I'm having appetising meals from fresh ingredients with little compromise on what I would be eating if I had a more conventional cooker. Of course, I have to cook quick things to economise on gas, so no broths... but I will have the woodstove going soon.

Interestingly my nearest neighbour is also someone who is in the formal sense of the term homeless - he is living in a small caravan in the neighbouring landowner's woods. I've always known there was more rural homelessness than most people guess, but I'm starting to realise that there's far more than even I had guessed. Of course, I am in a sense voluntarily homeless, and hope it will be short term. But if I don't get planning permission to build a legal house, creating a comfortable winter palace in the woods does not feel impossible.

Batteries for both phone and computer are limited resources, so my Internet use is far less than I'm used to, but so far I'm not missing it much.

So all in all so far so good. I'll post occasional updates as time goes on.