We knew a storm was in the offing. We were living aboard ‘Bolero’ a Moody 376 sailing yacht, in the marina at Les Sables d’Olonne on the west coast of France

But our minds were full of two other things as we approached the “New Millenium”.
One was the much advertised ‘Millenium Bug’ which was possibly going to return all clocks to zero, and render unusable all the navigation instruments on which we had come to rely…… The other was the ‘Mare Noire’ (Black sea). A few days earlier, the oil tanker ‘Erika’ had sunk of the west coast of France, spewing oil into the sea and onto the coastline. We had volunteered for duty searching the rocky shore for oil-damaged birds, equipped with huge gauntlets and cardboard animal carriers, and our trusty Brompton bikes.

Now, as the wind began to strengthen, as a precaution, we doubled up all the shorelines on the boat. The wind was getting up and there was an air of worried anticipation everywhere.

We took a walk to the end of the pier…or as far as we could get …..mountainous seas were breaking over the famous wall, from alongside which the sailors in the Vendee Globe Solo Circumnavigation Races, leave and return.

The impending storm took over as the prime the topic of conversation…. but our coffee break in a favourite bar was spoiled by an electricity cut….. We returned to the boat for an early meal…. ‘In case it gets too difficult to cook later on’

At seven pm, as we were finishing the washing up, there was a crash and the boat heeled hard to port.

Donning wet gear, we dashed on deck to find that we, and several hundred other boats were being flattened by the strongest wind that we had ever experiended, either at sea or in port. The port rails were in danger of being trapped under the pontoon… the likely consequence being holing the hull and then sinking.

For two hours, I was on the deck and Dave on the pontoon, both trying to get fenders in place to protect the hull. My shouts of ‘Mind your hands’…. became … ‘mind your arms’… then ‘mind your legs’ … as the wind and waves got bigger and stronger.

Then at nine pm, came another even louder crack. Looking up, I saw that all the boats on the opposite side of the pontoon (none of them occupied) were drifting away towards to sea, along with their sturdy pontoons.

Dashing below, I called the ‘Capitanerie’ on the radio, to report this latest calamity. (It had not ocurred to us to call for help for ourselves and our own boat)

Within minutes the heaving pontoon was swarming with strong young men. They tried in vain to rescue the drifting boats and gave up, and turned their attention to us and our predicament. What a relief!

Extra long lines and chains were brought to secure our boat and the pontoon to the shore. But then as bits of masts and radars started flying around, M. Jean Archambaud, the Port Captain, declared the marina a ‘No Go Area’ and we were taken ashore by strong hands, leaving our beloved home to the mercy of the storm.

Only two boats were occupied that night… the couple on the other one quickly left to stay with friends and we were offered a bed aboard the lifeboat alongside the sea wall. We politely refused as we thought it likely that it might be called out… but we were given bedding from it and put into ‘the clubhouse’ for safety. (Indeed, there was a ‘shout’ at midnight and the lifeboat was out all night)

Our refuge was a glass walled octagonal building. We spent eight cold wet terrifying hours in it, watching chimneys, trees, TV aerials etc etc, flying by…. then at daybreak, with the wind now down to just a gale force eight…. we dared to creep outside and go to see how ‘Bolero’ had fared.

Amazingly, she was afloat, with only one broken stanchion to show for her night of horror. We had really feared to worst, and had expected to see mooring lines leading down to her watery grave!

Elsewhere was total devastation

Dozens of large yachts and their accompanying pontoons had been washed away… mostly landing in untidy heaps on the other side of the marina, where the Vendee Globe yachts line up so proudly every four years before their circumnavigations.

Most of the boats lined up on the hardstanding were flattened, telephone lines were all down. Trees were uprooted. Chimneys and roofs were gone. Boats were sunk. Cars were overturned.

Once the storm had abated, we became aware of just how fortunate we had been. The strongest wind of the storm had been recorded just south of us at Oleron. At nearby La Rochelle, pontoons and boats were washed ashore where they demolished the marina headquarters, with great loss of life.

In the aftermath, we were the fortunate ones. On land, there were no telephones, electricity or water supplies for days… but we were self sufficient. We had solar power, a wind generator, a diesel generator, full water tanks and a boat full of food. And a mobile phone charged from an inverter.

We were happy to try to repay our saviours from the storm, as they endeavoured to sort out their broken marina, by providing cups of coffee and snacks all day.

By December 28th, the folk were getting their acts together, fallen trees were sawn up and roads were cleared. People were on the move again. We had many visits from local people, offering accommodation, washing facilities, drying rooms, meals, etc etc.

The best invite of all was from former neighbours in the marina the previous summer…. they asked us to join them for their fabulous millenium meal…. Twenty people at table for a feast that lasted 48 hours!

Ten years on… and it all seems like yesterday!

When I lived in Switzerland, it was not unheard of for the first snows of the winter to leave people caught out and stranded with total chaos for a day or two…just like here….. but there it was accepted as normal…

When I lived in Spain and Portugal, Autumn downpours regularly caused enormous floods (no adequate drainage) and long power cuts….. everybody accepted it.

As we start yet another drizzly weekend in August, I was amused to read the following in ‘The Costa Blanca News’, an English Language local paper about the rain in Spain this week, and the accompanying chaos:

“BENIDORM town centre was brought to a standstill on Monday as a combination of bad weather and an influx of thousands of vehicles saturated the town’s access roads.

The unexpected rain meant many people from other parts of the province opted for a day out in Benidorm leading to a massive overload of vehicles coming into the town.

This led to parking problems in just about every part of the town, forcing many drivers to drive around in circles looking for a space.

Ongoing work on pedestrianising some town centre streets has taken away hundreds of parking places and all of the underground car parks showed they were full for most of the day.

In Dénia continuing roadworks and breakdowns in the water supply network saw thousands of motorists caught in traffic chaos also on Monday.

A combination of road closures, excavation work, rain and hordes of families looking for a parking place was more than enough to totally disrupt traffic flow and heat tempers to boiling point.”

Ah well! Time to get the wellies out again and take the dog for a nice long muddy walk along the estuary, I think! At least the gardens and the countryside benefit from the wetness.

Left to right, Chataway, Banister, Brasher

It is fifty five years since the young medical undergraduate, Roger Bannister became the first person in the world officially to break the magical barrier of the four minute mile.  As a child of a home which did not yet have the luxury of a TV set, I heard the news on the radio, and later watched the exciting event on the Pathe Newsreel at the local cinema.

A couple of years later when I was a pupil at Colwyn Bay Grammar School in North Wales, we had the honour of a visit from one of Roger Bannister’s pacemakers, Chris Chattaway.  It was a hot summer’s day, and Chris gave us a sort of ‘masterclass’ in athletics.  At one point, he asked me to be the timekeeper for a track race and handed me his own personal wristwatch to perform the task.

I idly turned the watch over and was thrilled to see the inscription on the back.  It was the very watch presented to him by Roger Bannister himself as a ‘Thank-you’ for the assistance in breaking that barrier!

Another of the pacemakers on that day was of course, Chris Brasher who later founded the London marathon…  which both my son & daughter in law have successfully completed. And, if I am not mistaken, I believe that my son actually ran in a half marathon alongside Chris Chattaway, and managed a reasonably similar time…. though of course, the one was quite a few years older that the other by then!

Once the barrier had been broken, more and more people were to break the four minute barrier, and I myself was present in the crowd at White City when it happenned in the early sixties.

©1996 – 2009 American Academy of Achievement. All Rights Reserve

On a day when all the rest of news is sad or bad, it is great to hear some good news for once.

This Newfoundland is being trained to rescue people from the sea in Swansea.

The picture came from the Daily Mail and you can read more about this Super-Dog here

Hooray! I have to say that I for one am delighted that Formula One is to return to the BBC after twelve years of missed moves during lengthy adverts.

I have long advocated that ITV needed to insert a window into the adverts so that people could continue to watch the racing that they had tuned in to see, as is done on Spanish TV.

But this new announcement is even better.

All I hope now is that the Beeb has the sense and fortune to include Martin Brundle in its production team…. he was the one worthy asset ‘owned’ by ITV.

I am perfectly happy for my TV licence fee to be used to allow me to watch what I want to see without interruption by long and often boring adverts. Meanwhile for this season, I shall have to do as I always do, and go and make a cuppa during the intervals

I am indebted to kitmarlowescot2 … via Stonehead for these pictures of a delightful Gloucester Old Spot piglet born this week with appropriate markings for the occasion

Happy St Valentine’s Day…. give someone you love a hug…… and be kind to everybody you meet… little things like just letting somebody out in traffic, for example, can be contagious and spread like ripples on a pond.

He is a beautiful specimen , lively and strong, and he will surely not be with us long at Llys Nini. Somebody will very quickly fall in love with him (preferably a big strong chap, who enjoys long walks and who has a lovely big garden too!)

Apparently this dog was originally being trained as a sniffer dog, but he had other ideas and did not match up to the high sniffing standards required of him. However, this does not mean that this animal is a failure, his talents simply lie elsewhere.

He clearly decided that life is too short for all that hard work… and hard work it surely is, for all the working dogs and their trainers.

I was delighted therefore to receive my ‘First Day Covers’ of UK postage stamps this week, whose stars are The Working Dogs. They feature:

Assistance dogs,

Mountain rescue dogs,

Police dogs,

Customs dogs,

Sheepdogs and

Guide dogs.

It is great to see them being honoured in this way.

So when you go to the Post Office to buy stamps, don’t just buy plain old postage stamps!……. Always ask for the current picture stamps, especially the doggy ones! And to see a proper picture of how lovely this particular first Day Cover is, click here.

So get out the chocs and flowers and give somebody you love a hug

Happy St Dwynwen’s Day !

First there were three programmes, on three consecutive nights, from Hugh Fearnley Wittingstall comparing the merits (or otherwise) of “Intensive” versus “Free range” chicken meat production. I’ll say no more about this!

Then there was a study of three families’ diets comparing fresh food, standard convenience food and special convenience food. Funnily enough, little coverage was given to the real food, most of the emphasis being on the fact the more expensive ready meals (up to five times more costly) where on the whole less good for the body than the cheaper ones.

No cost comparisons were proffered for the fresh food, but it came out top of the class for its nutritional value, of course.

Then we had Jamie Oliver doing his bit on both the hen and the egg scene to bring home to Joe and Joanna Public the message that there is a need for awareness about the food we eat. I never did fancy those hot dog sausages, but nothing would persuade me to try one now!

At the same time, I was in the middle of re-reading “Not On The Label” by Felicity Lawrence. This should be compulsory reading for anyone who eats.

All in all, it was a week to put anybody off eating anything at all, let alone chicken!

Just as a matter of interest, on Friday I went into the new Sainsbury shop in Gorseinon, half a mile from home, to see how many free range and standard chickens were on display.

To my surprise, there was not a single item of free range chicken to be had. Nor were there spaces where they might have been before, possibly having been ‘bought up’ in reaction to the publicity…. Just rows of standard chickens and chicken parts.

So I asked an employee if it were possible to buy free range products in Sainsburys?

He strode confidently to the shelf, pondered a bit and then said brightly: ” Oh for things like that you would have to go to one of our bigger stores like the one in Swansea city centre” ( seven miles away) ……Why?

I have always prepared real food from scratch every day, and I feel more than ever glad that I never became sucked into the ‘ready meals’ circus.

I have, however, been made even more aware of the value of organic produce, and also of the ever increasing need to read labels carefully and indeed, to read between the lines……

There are several reasons for this.

Firstly, we tried to make the break once before, when we sailed away in 1999. We sent everyone on our huge list a card with instructions to keep it and put it up each year with the others, and to think of us, but not to send us cards. However, once we returned from our six year Odyssey, we somehow got sucked back in.

Last year we sent ‘Welsh Air Ambulance’ charity cards to everyone on the list and I included this web address, so that hopefully, any people who wonder where their cards are will come here to find out!.

This year, all the money which would have been used to purchase cards, and all the money which would have been spent on postage, will now be sent directly to the charity.

We have also decided not to give prezzies to the grown ups… only to grandchildren…. and they are having Premium Bonds rather than plastic trash. The children are old enough now to realise that not only will they have the chance to increase their holdings if they re-invest any winnings, but that eventually they will have some money saved up for when they are older and will be able to buy something substantial when they become independent.

As for the adults, the reasoning here is that most grown ups can do a better job of buying things they want/need, so it makes sense to avoid the mad rush and stress of shopping for things we hope they will like, but which, if they had really wanted them, they would have bought for themselves already.

All that… plus… we are getting old and have decided not to ‘do’ stress anymore!

Obviously, we shall not be expecting any gifts either, so think of the saving on prezzies, wrapping paper, gift tags and boxes… and think of all the trees that will not be wasted, and think of all that recycling space that will be free for others to fill.

Reading this through, I appear to be taking on the mantle of a certain Mr Scrooge.…. but nothing could be further from the truth. I just get cross about the amount of hype and ‘must have’ that accompanies the winter festival.

All this though, leads me on to my New Years Resolution, which is to make more effort to phone and/or Email friends and keep in better touch….. (since the invention of Email, there really is no excuse)

And still on the subject of Christmas, we have been to the children’s school Christmas concerts, which were excellent. But we were amazed to find not even one reference to the reason for the celebrations… not a crib nor a shepherd in sight… no Baby Jesus….no Joseph … no Virgin Mary…..no Magi…. no bright star….. Just Disney characters and Santas and woodland animals …..Whose birthday is it anyway?

Bah! Humbug!!!

Oh Yes…. And Merry Christmas everyone!