Great Western Coffee Shop

Brian is on its way.

The first rail related incident is the usual cancellation of CrossCountry Voyagers beyond Exeter St Davids. That was actioned at 1800 this evening.

No trampolining! But surely that was Zebedee, not Brian?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/20/storm-brian-weather-bomb-set-bring-70mph-winds-heavy-rain-uk/

Brian, the breeze they call Brian
It blew, blew blew and blew
Blew up to to be...
Blew up to to be
A wind called Brian...

It had gusts and wafts, puffs and draughts
The wind whose name was Brian
It blew, it blew and blew
Blew up to be, yes it blew up to be
A gale called Brian

...and so on

Brilliant. Can't help singing that in a Shirley Bassey stylee.

Great,

Except on the way home from work Today, on Arriva Train Wales was warned today from 7.00 am that tomorrow they are going to run a limited service because od Brian.

I swear the was a cheer on the service because all week it's been it turn up sometime.

At 59 I think I learn to drive.

Basset44

At 49 I'm having similar thoughts. Does look tricky though....

Anyone with half a Brian could have predicted trouble from a storm.

It's been pretty disappointing from here, though I did hear there was a tree on the line somewhere between Portsmouth and Southampton.

A bit of a storm in a teacup if you ask me.

I think overall the yellow warning issued by the Met office was the right one and no more. Remember it was the Irish Met office that named this storm because of them issuing an amber warning for the Irish Republic.

I'm down on the Dorset coast this weekend and it's pretty breezy down here with some big waves but I've seen worse here.

By the looks of it Wales looks to have borne the brunt of this storm.

I'm also seeing reports of flooding in parts of Lancashire following heavy rain probably because they've had quite a bit of rain in that part of the world of late.

Talk of temps back in the 20s in parts of the south next week!

Pretty brutal surveying on Melksham Station tonight!   Final northbound train left half an hour ago ... just two more southbounds to go.

I can imagine......I've often heard it said that a breezy day in Melksham brings the Siberian tundra to mind (must be those howling wolves and 6' of snow) and prospective Everest candidates are advised to spend a few hours enduring its savage conditions on an Autumn Saturday to see if they're up to the challenge! (The local WI act as sherpas!) 😉

The wolves are running, Master Ellis.

Turns out Brian wasn't a very naughty boy after all. You know what they say:

Some storms in life are bad. They can really make you mad. Other winds just make you swear and curse. When you're chewing on life's gristle, don't grumble; give a whistle, and this'll help things turn out for the best. And... always look on the bright side of life...

Well I can certainly testify to the line of the yellow weather warning that said 'Short term loss of power and other services is also possible.'

Been sitting in the dark since 7pm. SSE saying power should be back on around 9pm.

A lesson to us all to pay attention even to the yellow warnings cos ya never know!

Well, my Bristol garden is in no immediate need of watering but the early evening rather wet variety of rain has abated. Could be a Redland microclimate but no indication of flood relief measures being taken in neighboring  Bishopston.

Many a true word spoken in jest ... I suspect that two of the four ladies who were helping us (including the one who took the 17:36 challenge) are local WI members.

On the "Siberian" duty at the station, it was myself, Lee, Tracey and Judith (in order of descending number of trains surveyed); well wrapped, and rotas all included warming train trips too.   Any coldness (personally, I'm pretty hardy) was more than made up for by the support and help from the passengers - it warmed the heart and confirmed how much we have stepped forward on the TransWilts (and also, it has to be said from comments, how much further we can still go).

There's an easy way to confirm your suspicions - ask them to sing "Jerusalem" - if they're WI they'll be word perfect  :)

I'm thinking that the UK Met Office need to disassociate from the Irish Met Office - what might make for storm conditions in Eire might simply be standard Autumnal weather for the UK. *I don't think Brian needed naming for the UK.

Totally agree. I think this naming of 'storms' is becoming embarrassing and is offensive to those in other parts of the world who do have to face proper storms namely hurricanes/Typhoons.