The Wilds of England

Whilst the very worst storms in Brighton see me dig in at home and wedge my windows shut, I do enjoy a saunter out to see Brighton getting ripped to pieces by wind and rain. During the very worst gales Brighton has seen since I have lived down South it was too dangerous to even go near to the seafront as the wind and waves actually lifted pebbles from the beach and moved them over the fences onto the promenade. This was the occasion when many of the beach huts on Hove seafront were completely levelled.

This weekend weather forecasters are promising us gallons of rain and gale force wind. If I listen very carefully I can hear the wind whipping through the trees and the rain lashing against the windows, but I have to listen very carefully through the double glazed windows and the high hedges which protect half of my parents house from the elements. Back home in Brighton my attic bedroom is south facing and exposed to the elements. I have, more than once, been awoken in the middle of the night by gale force winds shaking the entire building and a sound that suggested the most inclement of the elements would be bursting through my ceiling in the immediate future.

There is something deliciously raw about the sound of wind and rain hurling itself destructively at buildings, which, in the face of unbounded nature seem terribly primitive and impermanent. Pulling the duvet over ones head and listening as the wind screams past the window is one of the basest pleasures in life. I often think that the knowledge that we are safe and warm inside, comfortable and dry, is the closest we can come to jouissance after infancy.

The sublime is a fearsome experience but one which not just transports but transforms.  My very worst mood can be complete eradicated (or perhaps I should say 'blown away') by a fearsome storm, to the point that I receive the news of extreme weather warnings with delighted anticipation.  It is in this vein that I lament my current location - some 200 miles from the south coast which has been promised floods and gales whilst the East Midlands braces itself for a bit of rain.

Winter, at least, is decidedly here, and there will be plenty more occasions on which I can shiver with awe as the house shudders beneath the weight of a storm.