DEMENTIA CARE: MILD WINTER SURPRISES.

Winter surprises that are actually mild? Or actual surprises from a mild winter?
   Yes, the mildness of winter 2024/25 was surprising in its level of mildness. Until the hefty Tolkien storm came along in the last week of January. Storms are named after…people, I guess. This is unfortunate for the people they are named after. Just call the storm by number. Then we know, deep into the bones of the year, that we’ve faced HOW MANY storms?!
   Storm 1/25 was highly cynical. By that, I mean highly salty. Is January the start of the storm season, though? No. It is not. September appears to be the start, with August being the finish. That way, there’s the autumnal lead-in to winter from one year to the next.
   Okay. Storm Éowyn, then. This storm can kill the Witch-King of Angmar, for this storm is not a man. And is accompanied by a Hobbit. Or something. There are organisations which name storms, depending on where those storms roll in. And there are rules for the naming of storms. Never feed them after midnight…
   There doesn’t appear to be a rule barring Mister Tolkien’s characters from being named as storms. Beware Storm Bombadil. He’s high as fuck. Look out for Storm Sauron. That one’s bound to be really nasty. Goes away, forms a ring, lingers. Threatens to return. Something about Hobbits. How nasty was this January storm? You never know until you are under it…
   Storms hit differently in the daylight. This Tolkien storm came in gradually at night, with rising gusts, but the worst of it struck over the course of a very long morning and afternoon. At night, if you heard a bump…you stayed in bed. As long as the windows remained.
   During the day you could see a definite lack of trampolines. Most people took the trampolines apart and stored them away. There’s always one trampoline left outside, though. I watched it dance and jitter – held in place by ties that kept the entire contraption loosely in place. Only the failure of the fence would set the trampoline bouncing away. Not ideal.
   In the same street, I stared at two broken fences and several shaky ones. My bins were in shelter, shielded by the hut. Would the hut fly away, though? Other people’s bags whipped in and out of the garden, dancing in the air like ghosts.
   I had to close the gate. Normally, it’s open for the carers. Usually, it’s held open against the wind by two bricks. They weren’t heavy enough to do the job against this storm. So I shut the gate. And the bins?
   Yes, I moved one bin across to shelter. The lids are held down by half-bricks. These are bricks weathered by winter after winter until they split. During the storm, a half-brick split into quarter-chunks. No use to me, now.
   I wrestled these things into place. Moved bits and pieces around. That was as much as I could manage in my long winter coat. The rain fell, fierce, stinging, but I was protected from the worst of it.
   You become aware of the need to do a few things in the garden. And you kit yourself out for rough weather. Then you go, moving fast, hoping bits of the roof won’t fall on you. The winter-bare trees stood firm. If this had been an early autumn storm, with leaves everywhere, branches would’ve gone.
   No debris hit me. I retreated to safety. That was it, for me. No awkward deliveries or pick-ups. Supermarket food arrived days before. I’ll be putting rubbish out for recycling, in calmer times. Just got lucky with the timing of it.
   How was this storm? Rougher than usual, with loads of fences taking a kicking. Even bins heavy with recycling material toppled over if they didn’t have shelter. Carers walked in and described the weather as fucking ridiculous.
   It’s rare that carers swear. The main concern was electricity. Yes, the lights flickered. There’s always that moment when you think the power is about to go. I have emergency lighting available as standard. But there’s no way to heat water when the power is gone.
   The house used to have a hot water tank. If the water was heated and the power went, you had a bit of a reserve in your tank. Not much, but enough in a pinch. Now, the water heats as it passes through the electrical system. I would have to reach for matches to light the gas – never a good idea – to create heat for water.
   Now I have reminded myself to purchase an electric gas sparker gadget. Why haven’t I thought about that before? Thinking about it, now. Anyway, gas supply is not the main concern. No. The electric hoist must work…
   I know it is designed to hold enough charge to keep someone going in a power-cut. That way, the cared-for isn’t left dangling. And there’s a battery for operating the emergency controls. The same is true of the hospital-style bed. It moves very slowly when not plugged in, but it does move at glacial speed on very little charge. A slow something is better than a quick nothing.
   And there are plenty of blankets, if the heating is truly gone. But the thing about the matches. Yes, I must add an extra layer of protection, there. Torches are dotted throughout the place. No candles. Those are a hazard. Use reliable sources of light.
   Yes, they are safety matches.
   Okay. Discussing the wild storm, which didn’t disrupt electricity, I realise there’s this one weakness in the system. If hot water is suddenly essential, and only then. I have plenty of back-up systems available. Time to add one more. And by the power of Amazon, it is done.
   Right. If there’s a call for warm water during a loss of power, I can spark the gas hob into life and heat a saucepan. Better than the void. I’ve gone this far without needing MANY back-up systems that are right there if I do need them.
   Irony. The back-up fridge was the first fridge to die. When you have two fridges, both fridges are back-up fridges for each other. I considered the second purchase to be the proper back-up. Well, in the midst of winter with one fridge dead…the back-up plan worked.
   I still have the cold weather items handy, even though I’ve reached that part of the year with snowdrops bursting merrily through the soil. It’s far too warm for actual snow. The only white drifts in sight are the waves of salt on the windows. They streak sideways.
   The salty cynical storm brought harsh rain on rather rough winds, and the ocean dumped itself on the glass with that level of ferocity that tells you the storm is worse than usual…once it is all over. Misty fog only pretends to be outside. It’s salt from the deeps, fogging the windows up.
   How harsh was the storm? Most of the weather here is ultra-changing and ultra-mild. Carers spoke of roof damage and navigating fallen trees on roads. Not just fences, bags, and bins, then. A bit more serious than the norm.
   The wind map shows another storm frothing and flapping in the ocean as I type. By the time that event reaches me, I’ll have ultra-swift delivery of the sparky gadget. Useful? I think the fire extinguishers are useful. So are the smoke detectors. I never use those smoke detectors. But I do test them weekly, just in case.
   Switching to a longer winter coat made going into the garden less of an ordeal. The hood is very deeply padded, and would protect me from being pelted by loose moss flying off rooftops and gutters. Protection from loose gutters…not so great. But I will take it.
   There are far worse storms in other parts of the world. But I am not in other parts of the world. Here’s the weather rule. You grow used to the weather you face. Never mind how cold it is in Siberia. Mind how cold it is out your back door. Then an extreme event comes along and you survive a day that’s windy as fuck. Siberians would call it a breeze. You grow used to the weather you face.
   I see a wee storm close by. Usually, you spot these big storms way across the Atlantic. They threaten, they menace, but then they blow out long before they reach here. With the Tolkienish storm, it took a while to form up.
   Weather maps don’t do clickbait, the way news organisations do. I’d grown tired, this winter, of news outlets plotting the exact moment a mile of snow would fall on the land…heralding the return of woolly mammoths. Mammoths don’t count as mild winter surprises. They’d be big news.
   How close are mad scientists to bringing mammoths back, and what would the steaks be like? I’m sure that’s not the overriding scientific motivation at work. But it’s what we’d end up with.