'The DSM' Editorial - Issue 99 Storm Miguel


Big decisions! Shorts or trousers? Just a T-shirt? T-shirt and a jumper? T-shirt, shirt and jumper? It looks a beautiful day from inside, then once out there’s an unexpected nip in the air. Just as you think summer has truly arrived storm Miguel shows up and decimates the tomatoes. It was carnage when I went to the vegetable patch the morning after...broad beans everywhere. 

The fly screens are on the windows and blankets a distant memory. At night it’s like sleeping in a slow cooker, and the mosquitoes have been out in force, bleeding you dry. But then at three in the morning there’s a ‘ping’ on the phone as your Wi-Fi provider warns of a storm brewing. Anna rushes downstairs, yanking every available plug from their moorings. The cushions! The cushions are still outside on the sunloungers! Anna disappears into the darkness, I stay in bed hoping she doesn’t meet a wild boar en route. She returns informing me that the hatches have been battened and the washing taken in. We return to our slumber. 

At four o’clock the sound of torrential rain is heard outside, replacing the usual cacophony of grasshoppers and frogs. Why is it so loud? We’ve left the fly screens up and the windows are open! The only design flaw with my fly screens is that to get them in, you have to take one side of the windows off. I don’t know if you’ve tried to get a window back on its hinges at 4am with rain lashing into the bedroom...but it made for a fractious few minutes. 

July is upon us and hopefully it’s shorts and T-shirts all the way. Maybe the trunks will even make an appearance. Whatever you’ve got on this month we hope your plugs stay socketed, your cushions dry and you enjoy our July issue.




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