I love grilled sardines. It has to be one of my favourite meals. Tasty and simple. When Mirinda confirmed she was going to have Sunday lunch with Sophie this weekend, I decided I’d be eating sardines. Luckily, Phil at the Waitrose seafood counter could oblige.
Phil and I discussed the various merits of seafood. As I may have written before, he doesn’t like salmon. Today he said how much he loves kippers with an egg. When I said how much I love sardines and how much Mirinda doesn’t he suggested that perhaps there was something Mirinda liked that I didn’t. Oysters, I said with a grimace. He returned the grimace.
Phil agreed with me that oysters are disgusting. He said the fact that people smother them in all sorts of nonsense, is testimony for how awful they are. Pamela at the meat counter then chipped in with her love of smoked oysters. I had to leave at this point, claiming it was a crime against marine life.
I’d managed to reach Waitrose even though the beginnings of Storm Eunice tried to blow me back home. There was only one tree showing signs of windy destruction as I walked in though I’m sure there were more by the end of the day.
Mirinda said she saw trees down on her way to and from Hankley in the afternoon, once the eye of the storm had moved away from us. Not that they were blocking the road like so many others throughout the land. In fact, I spotted a photo on Twitter where a tree had come down, missing a parked car by inches.
I was surprised that the gum tree in the Dead House garden didn’t lose any of its branches. The wind was blowing it hither and thither. Had there been a koala in it, it would have needed a parachute.
Actually, a big highlight of the day was discovering a guy who spent hours standing on top of his van, filming the brave pilots as they attempted to land at Heathrow in winds in excess of 100mph. He became an Internet sensation. At one point, while I was watching, he had 86,000 plus viewers watching wings wobbling and rudders flapping. It was very exciting.
His Youtube channel is called Big Jet TV. Here’s his coverage of the daring pilots and their flying machines during Storm Eunice.
Mind you, it can be very addictive. I had to force myself to stop watching.
Mirinda reckons it would be a lot worse in a small plane. I suggest that not many small planes would have been in the air today.
Eventually, Eunice headed for the North Sea and spread a bit of woe through northern Europe and the weather here became more benign.
Everything was safe here at home though I did get clobbered on the head twice by falling branches on the way home from the shops. Fortunately, they were very small branches. And my skull is quite thick.
