Turbulence.

Most of this week has been windy. Really windy. The sort of wind that blows the air straight past your nose without giving it time to be inhaled. The sort that has to be leaned into but then suddenly lets you down. Mainly coming from the West but with the ability to whip round and come at you from the North just as you are least braced for it. My windsurfing son loves strong wind but even he admits this isn’t the best sort. It’s been blowing hard day and night and I think people are looking quite tired. D will have been sleeping on the landing. Her bedroom has two external walls and the house is on a bit of a promontory overlooking fields and woodland giving a lovely view on a fine day but very exposed to this buffeting. She spends quite a lot of time on the landing during the winters! My house is sheltered on three sides; the church to the north and the High Street buildings East and West. It also has extremely thick walls, over 2ft in places. so I haven’t suffered from lack of sleep but there has been some anticipated damaged. The rustic archway that I knew wouldn’t last out the winter has broken away one side and is only held in place by the thickness of the growth around it. Something to be sorted out next week. First find your handyman.

So many people up here live in caravans. I have spent enough months in one to know what that’s like in the windy intervals. The walls pop in and out like those toy tin frogs that croak when the metal is pressed down. However carefully the van is bolted to its moorings there is always the horrible feeling that the bonds might break and the whole thing go a**se over tip. It’s very difficult sleeping soundly in those circumstances.

This is a turbulent time of the year. Chinese medicine takes account of the between-season disturbances to physical and mental health. We are in an ‘Earth Buffer’ period now betwixt Autumn and winter. I half-remember there being a name like ‘donjon’ for this stage but Google as I might I can’t find any verification of that. A long long time ago I did a course in Chinese medicine that was the lead-up to an acupuncture course. Some of it has stayed with me, not as much as should have done because it was given in French and my brain doesn’t find the need to go into those dusty filing cabinets much. The bits that had relevance to my own state of health made most impression and the ‘buffer’ times are generally thought to be difficult times for asthmatics. It does seem that people generally are more tired at these times and I was regularly ill around these times with something or other that led to bronchitis. and once pneumonia. Interesting, but I wish I had learned a bit more about what defensive or ameliorating actions we can take.

A turbulent time for spirits too with All Hallows e’en almost upon us. All Saints Day is a holiday in most countries on the other side of the channel and when I lived there the EU personnel who came from outside Belgium were allowed an extra day on either side of it to make the journey back to their homeland to put flowers on the graves of relatives. The British contingent to the AEU (excepting my ex, a very conscientious soul) sometimes took the days off although it isn’t really an accepted custom in England, Wales or Scotland as far as I know. I’m open to correction here.

The fall-back in time tonight brings the inevitable plunge into winter darkness and ensures that I will be awake tomorrow at some unholy hour wanting my coffee. It takes me months to adjust.