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!

Fears had been expressed about the welfare of some of the greyhounds whose owners might not wish to continue to care for them.

All the animal welfare charities agreed to combine forces to ensure that temporary shelter could be found for any animal who needed it, and after the last race, there were people at the stadium ready with mobile kennels to take any unwanted animals to a safe place.

Many animals were saved.

Sadly though, two greyhounds were turfed out by their owner to fend for themselves in the very cold night air, and the busy streets of Swansea.

Many volunteers from various animal charities have spent hours today, searchimg streets and fields looking for these two poor greyhounds. We know that they have both already been hit by cars and are injured. This could lead them to try to shelter somewhere… as dogs do….and the first frost of the winter is forecast here for tonight…. but they need veterinary attention as soon as possible!

Our best hope is that some kind people have taken them in to care for them….
If you know of their whereabouts, PLEASE contact

http://www.greyhoundrescuewales.co.uk/og2009/og2009.htm

and they will ensure that the dogs get the medical help that they urgently need

Please share this and help us to try to find these poor innocent animals.

“‘Angel’ falls off a lorry
Málaga dog found in Somerset is being nursed back to health

By Dave Jamieson

It’s not everyday that a dog falls off the back of a lorry, but that is just what is thought to have happened in the case of a Spanish dog found in the south-west of England. Since Angel was found straying in Somerset, the local county council’s Animal Health and Welfare Team have been working with local organisations to help get the dog back to full health.

Angel, a pedigree boxer, was handed in to the RSPCA after being found in a car park in Taunton. She was found to have a microchip linking her to an address in Málaga, more than 1,300 miles (2,100 km) away from Somerset. She was registered in Spain 10 years ago but attempts to contact her previous owner, named on the microchip as Diane Levy, have proved unsuccessful and it is suspected that the dog entered the UK illegally on the back of a lorry.

The county council has a duty to make sure any animals suspected of coming into Somerset in breach of current UK rabies laws are either placed in quarantine, deported or destroyed, but luckily for Angel, the South Western Boxer Club volunteered to take responsibility for her and support her six months in quarantine.

Club secretary Glenda Tibbots, said, “When she came to us she was very thin and had black patches on her side with no hair there. She has had an operation to remove a big lump on her eye and is putting on weight. She is an absolutely super dog and needs a one-to-one home, so at the end of the six months we will try to find a new home for her.”

If anyone recognises Angel or can shed light on how she travelled from Málaga to Somerset, please contact Glenda on 0044 1278 785 071. “

We became involved in this HD TV saga as a direct result of the sudden death of my washer-dryer after fifteen years of reliability, when after several unsuccessful attempts to get a suitable replacement at the right price elsewhere,  we eventually went into Currys in Llansamlet in Swansea.

We quickly found exactly the right product, paid for it and arranged for its’ delivery a couple of days later at a time to suit our timetable….. Sorted!

On the way out, we noticed a huge amount of publicity for a special offer to install HD and multi-room Sky TV.  We made enquiries and were told that we could use this offer to upgrade the Sky TV we currently have …… no purchase necessary (though, to be fair we had just spent £450 on a new washing machine, had we not?)… So for a one off payment of £29, and then an extra £20 per month we would have Sky HD in the lounge and a further sky box in a second room.

Several text calls and Emails from Sky later, we had a phone call from somebody several thousands of miles to the east of Offa’s Dyke, a gentleman called ‘Mo’ with a very pronounced accent.

From this difficult conversation,  it emerged that the amazing offer we had received from our local store was a complete mix up.  We could not in fact have the multi-room offer.  That only comes when you purchase an HD-ready TV from the store at the time of booking (contrary to the information from the salesman).  Also we would have to pay,  not £29, but £79 …. though the monthly increase would be halved to £9.75…. and this would just be for the straightforward HD and Sky in one room only…..

Confused?… We certainly were, with each of us taking turns to try to translate what the man in the call centre was trying to get across.  He said that installation would be very simple, and would not need any wiring, just a card, as we already have a sky aerial.  He tried to persuade us, though, to switch our telephone to Sky, but we refused as we are happy with our current service provider, and we made it clear that we were not prepared to link the TV to the telephone….(we don’t use TV shopping channels)

We agreed to go ahead, anyway with the straightforward installation of the basic HD in one room only, and a date was fixed for Monday, between 9 am  and 1 pm.  We mentioned the fact that there is congestion at certain times as we live opposite a school, and that access to the satellite dish is restricted by a canopy, but we were assured that this would not be a problem.

We later received a letter confirming the installation arrangements, just as we were going away for the weekend preceeding ‘Installation Monday’.

On the Sunday evening we received an Email telling us that the installation team would telephone us at 9 am on the Monday to tell us exactly when they would arrive.

At 9.30 am on that fateful Monday (without the telephone warning) two service engineers arrived (knowing nothing about the Email contact).

Firstly, they inspected the satelite dish…. (cue: sucking in of breath)…. “The problem here is that it will have to be totally rewired.  The wire is the wrong colour.  The original Sky Engineer installed it wrongly, you see.  And you are missing a bit at the end of it that we’ll have to add.  It will all have to be rewired,  and that will be difficult as it is all sealed in”

So we went inside to look at the set …..” Yes, that’s OK, but where is the telephone socket?”

Now then!  Here’s the rub …. despite having told the far-away-gentleman that we were not prepared to link to the telephone…it appears that, if we do not connect the TV to the telephone, Sky will charge us a further £25 in order NOT to do so!

They will also then charge us an additional £60 per month until the full cost of the HD box has been covered.

To connect the telephone would involve having two sets of wires running into the room, over the door and across the room.  In addition, the far-away-gentleman had arranged for “Multi-room Sky” (which we had distinctly said we did not want), which would mean a further two sets of wires coming into the house and over and around several other doors and into another room too! Not a word of all this had ever been mentioned before.

Then they turned their attention to the fact that our TV stands on top of a purpose built reproduction cabinet  (cue: another sharp intake of breath)…. “The trouble there, is the lack of ventilation …. the HD box gets very hot… you would have to sit with the cabinet doors open whenever you want to watch HD TV., or sit the box outside somewhere on a table, (complete with wires)

At this point, we both said unanimously:  “Sorry, boys… forget it!”

However… there is another twist to this farce…Had we allowed them to go ahead with their planned task, they would not have been able to set it up on the same day, anyway, as in their wisdom, the company had not sent us the necessary HD card and we would have been without any TV at all until such time as they managed to get their act together!

The engineers were very understanding, considering that they had spent at least 30 minutes of their time, for which Sky would not reimburse them, and they agreed that we were right to cancel in view of the long term disruption and damage that the installation would  inevitably have caused.

The engineer used our land line to contact the firm and my husband then cancelled the contract and asked for a full refund within 24 hours. (Needless to say,even 48 hours later there was no sign of the refund, and when we telephoned the Sky number we had been given, they knew nothing about it)

At the same time our visitor made a call on his mobile phone to report “Yet another cancellation as a result of poor advice and information, both from the initial salesman and the call centre”.

Why does Sky do this?  Perhaps they hope that people will be afraid to stop the work when the full reality of the lack of truthful information is realised?  Yet these two apparently honest engineers told us there are dozens of people deciding, as we did, that it is all just not worth the hassle.

But then, Sky were quick enough to take the £79 from our account .  On a grand scale over the whole country, that probably could amount to an enormous sum of money available to them for trading, despite its’ having to be returned later…they at least have access to cashflow for fourteen days in the interim.

So….Beware!  If you should decide to take up one of these offers, make sure you read the small print and don’t get too excited about HD until you actually talk to someone who knows what is what.

Despite the fact that the Government in Westminster has seen fit to allow English badgers to continue to live in their natural settings (or should I say sets?) , the Welsh Assembly has decided that the culling of badgers in Wales is to go ahead.

The cull will happen in Pembrokeshire unless enough people can persuade the members of the Sennedd to change their minds.

The RSPCA is calling for a massive response to their request to sign the petition at:

www.backoffbadgers.org

Please sign it and ask your friends to sign it too.

At a time when just about everyone in the country is fitting energy saving bulbs in their homes, tightening their belts against the economic crunch we are facing, having cavity wall insulation installed, closing curtains at dusk, turning down the thermostat and wearing extra clothes, switching off pilot lights and lights that are not strictly necessary……

At a time when many Local Councils are switching off street lights completely to conserve energy and cut costs…

Penyrheol Primary School is lighting up the sky again.

It is, however, not quite so wasteful as it used to be.  Only eight of the massive globes were lit this week.  They also went off by 2100 hours which is a slight improvement.

On other occasions, there have been 18 globes lit from before dusk until after 9.00pm  Indeed, on more than one occasion they have all been left on all night.

Now…. at this time of the year, all the children are safely home before dusk.

These lights are presumably there to help adults to find their way into the school to attend keep fit classes and the like.  There was a grand total of 5 cars in the car park on Thursday

There are already adequate street lights in Penyrhoel.

They are on all night.

There are already adequate security lights around the school.

Why cannot the people attending the school in the evenings, each purchase a small torch …possibly like the one I myself use when I take my dog for a walk at night?

Presumably it is our Council Tax which is used to pay for this blatant extravagance?

Grrrrrrrrrrr !

Following the shameful behaviour of the people in Ashstead in Surrey last year, today there has emerged a disgraceful episode in Woking, again in Surrey, where an injured soldier, sent home for treatment to a war wound, was kicked out of a hotel which he had booked into earlier in the day.

He had gone to Woking to visit another injured soldier, a friend of his. He booked into the Metro Hotel earlier, made his visit, and when he returned to his room to sleep at about 10pm he was asked for ID. He showed his military ID and was told that soldiers were unwelcome there!

He was promptly kicked out and had to spend an uncomfortable night in his car.

Personally, as the daughter of a World War Two RAF hero, and the grand daughter of two soldiers who fought in World War One, I very strongly object the the treatment meted out to this wounded soldier .

Sadly, on the same day that this disgusting behaviour was reported, another young British Soldier was reported to have been killed in Afghanistan.

All I can say is that, if I  should ever need a hotel in Woking, I would rather sleep in my car, or even on a pavement, than stay at the Metro Hotel in Woking.

There is a saying that all publicity is good publicity…………Let’s hope that this will prove to be the exception to the rule.

In this age where money appears to be the master, rather than the slave, I find myself confused by the dramatically emerging tragedy of arson, death and intrigue which is unfolding by the minute on the TV this week. The family involved are constantly referred to as having millionaire status, yet reading the story, one has the impression that they were, in fact very much like millions of other people in the country, i.e., in negative equity and living well above their means.

The media, too, appears to be caught up in the misconception that having expensive possessions, albeit unpaid for and in reality belonging to somebody else, makes people different from Joe and Jane Bloggs

I find it terribly sad that folk have to try to keep up appearances and lose track of reality.

Mr Micawber had it about right when he stated: “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”

Somewhere along the line, since I did maths at school (admittedly a long time ago) ‘debit’ became renamed ‘credit’ and I can’t help thinking that that is where the rot started to set in.

Years ago, people tried to avoid being ‘in debt’.

Now it is increasingly rare to find folk who have bank accounts in credit… though to have ‘a good credit rating’ can mean that a person can get very deeply into debt….

What a sad, sad world we live in!

The South Wales Evening Post today reported a ‘shock’ increase in animal cruelty in the last year.

The BBC ran a similar story this morning.

However, whilst the figures are distressing and the number of badly treated animals is disgracefully high, the fact is that the 2007 Animal Welfare Act is doing exactly what it was meant to do.

As a direct result of last year’s legislation, which came into force on 26th March 2007 in Wales, RSPCA Inspectors are now able to intervene at an earlier stage to give advice to animal owners rather than, as used to be the case, having to wait until real cruelty had occurred and could be proved…….. they can now do what their title indicates, PREVENT cruelty, rather than simply come in when it is too late and merely prosecute.

Early intervention means that owners are given a chance to change their behaviour. If they do, the animals get a better life, but failure to comply with advice will result in prosecution at an earlier stage than was previously possible.

The people in the picture above are members of the staff at Llys Nini, but we have personally transported both Roxy the Rotti and Clancy the King Charles Spaniel, to and from the vets’ surgery for treatment. Both are now looking for new loving homes

It is rewarding to see how well animals progress from the pitiful condition that they are often in when they arrive at Llys Nini, to the happy and fit animals they become thanks to the applied TLC at the re-homing centre.

Perhaps then, the increased numbers of successful prosecutions for cruelty is not a shock, but is rather an opening up of what we knew was there all along….. and proof that action is at last being taken to stop the terrible mis-treatment of helpless animals.

Our own lovely dog was a rescue dog from Llys Nini, and a better companion would be hard to imagine, but we often wonder what her life would have been were it not for the intervention of the RSPCA…..

If you are looking for a pet, why not try the re-homing centre first, and give a new lease of life to a dog, cat, rabbit, ferret, bird, etc., etc.?

Or if you would like to volunteer to do something positive to help, why not go to your local centre and offer your services?

Sadly, the cockle beds in the Bury Inlet and the Three Rivers area of Carmarthen Bay have had to be closed today because an outbreak of diarrhetic shellfish poisoning (DSP) has been detected.

The news was issued by the City & County of Swansea Council in a bulletin this afternoon

They say that it is still OK to walk on the beaches and even to bathe in the water.

However, with a brisk westerly wind blowing up the Loughor Estuary and the rain battering horizontally, probably nobody would chance a swim today!

Here’s hoping the problem will be quickly sorted, though, to allow the local cocklers to get back to their work.

It is to be hoped also, that this time around, the tests are more accurate than those conducted in 2001 when DSP was detected in this area, closing the beds for fourteen months …. and unnecessarily, as the readings were later found to have been unreliable.