This is  the new year, the back-to-work, leftovers-in-the-dog 3rd of January. And something is wrong. Susan was wandering about claiming she ‘could hear a hum’ and that I’d left the turntable spinning, amplifier on, after that Hogmanay vinyl splurge. But no, it was just Tinnitus: The Return. And lo, there was my eternal in-ear whine as well. Which could mean only one thing. The wind had dropped.

For five days this old house has been battered and buffeted by gales. The noise has ranged from a low-frequency roaring through to the screech of untuned gutters and the weird rattle of loose window seals. Always the need to check for the full-throated blast furnace rumble of a chimney fire, but coal (‘eco nuggets’, no less) has been keeping that at bay: the oily residue from peat is what really sets the lums alight.

And there’s the sea, in these tides just 30 old feet away from the front door, beyond the crumbled armouring. Big waves can slop over the house, though thankfully the wind direction was wrong for that. The crash of shingle on car windscreen isn’t really audible amidst the gale noise. And the front door wouldn’t open anyway.

Dexter the dog spent the week rising only from cushioned sofa comfort  to scuttle into the relatively sheltered back yard for his ablutions. Susan’s treasured log store (with carefully  planted ‘living roof’) has disintegrated and the rotten fence has succumbed. Trees, such as we possess, rocked alarmingly on their splayed, shallow Shetland roots. A few have  split and sintered.

But today the air has stopped moving quite as quickly and forcefully (down to a mere 36mph south easterly). I can hear oddities: rheumatic wheezing from the fridge, field mice scrabbling in the walls. All overlaid by the residue of my rock’n’roll earbashing years. Kids! Beware them earbuds!

And there’s the reversing beep of the  binmen and their  lorry of selective disposal . Damn, I forgot to put out the recycling. But it doesn’t matter.  They won’t be able to find the bins anyway. If it gets calmer, I’ll maybe take the boat out later and go looking for them.