SATURDAY 17TH January.

The weekend is here and not much to do, sounded like a good start.
My day began with a trip into town in the morning to search for a pair of school shoes for the middle son.
We started with the charity shop, always a good place to start because you just never know!
No luck in there but the boys all managed to come out with a "new" toy.
So then it was down to Sports Mode the only other place on the islands where you can buy new shoes.
We seemed to arrive with half a dozen other people which isn't good because it is generally quiet in the shop and only the owner was working.
So we had a quick look around, but the boy didn't fancy any of the shoes styles on display and with the owner busy with other customers we decided to carry on shopping and maybe have a look on ebay for shoes instead..
So we ventured on into town to get a few provisions.
A trip into town on Saturday morning normally means you are going to see lots of people you know, being a small island I know pretty much everybody here.
So walking down the road is always a pleasant experience meeting your friends and stopping for a chat.
Some people will stop me to talk about a carpet they might want, actually that happens allot.
Any way with the shopping done, we headed home for lunch.
The weather was the days big story though.
After lunch the wind was picking up quite nicely, very gusty, but increasing strength all the time.
I knew that rain was on the way and decided to take a walk before the rain came.
I started off in Old Town and went up to Peninis Head, here the wind was right on the nose of the headland and walking out there was invigorating but quite hard.
It turns out the wind was probably about 50 mph so its not surprising really..
For photography though it was quite tricky, the first problem was the sheer amount of sea spray around., normally just about when the biggest wave struck and when you wanted to take the pic!
Second problem was holding the camera still enough to take a pic that wasn't blurry.
I got a few pics, but missed out on getting a pic of what I was looking at because when the big waves came it was just to wet to take my camera out.
I stayed up there for a while,but on the horizon it was looking dark, so I figured it wouldn't be a bad idea to get home before the rain.
Walking back down into Old Town bay you really notice the shelter of the headland and there were birds here like little egrets, grey heron and green shank all sheltering and feeding.
I wasn't home long before the rain arrived and with it the wind got stronger.
Then I was turned into the taxi again, I needed to take my nephew to a party in town.
On the drive there was plenty of little twigs and small branches on the road fallen from elms trees.
But other than that and the fact it was dark now you didn't really notice the weather that much,well not in the car anyway!
It rained pretty much all night and the whole time that I was out at my sisters meal.
Which I have to say was very good.
We went to Blues who put on a 3 course meal for £18.95 quite a bargain.
I had crab and prawn cocktail,rib eye steak with peppercorn sauce and sticky toffee pudding.
All very good and feeling full we headed back to my sisters house for a wee drink.
As I was driving I stayed on the squash!
While we were there a thunderstorm was moving in and it was nearing the time for us to relieve the babysitter, our neice...
Now I don't mind thunderstorms in the day time too much, but at night they seem to take on a more menacing feeling, coupled with torrential rain it wasn't going to be fun going home.
My son has a fear of these storms too so I was thinking about him at home.
With the storm getting worse I made the decision to go right then.
We waited for a flash and bang and legged it to the car running through steams and puddles.
Got to the car just as another big flash happened.
I was not too keen about this and realised the storm must have been right overhead now, the rain was the worse I have driven in, I'm glad we didn't have to go far and that no-one else was on the road.
We got home safely and waited for the next flash..and there it was seconds later.
So ran inside through more huge puddles and steams of water, and it was good to be home!
It must have been a matter of minutes and the whole storm had blown away a quick as it arrived and no-one at home was any the wiser with all 3 boys sleeping like babies!
And that's about it for Saturday 17th!