Winter is getting a little windy.

[Chuck E]

Well, I have survived the recent storms with not too much damage, just a bit of fence to straighten and a wonky aerial. It was really hammering my garage door, wheelie bins and sheds. I was most worried about the new roof on my workshop, and the old roof on my garage. Having brought a lot of my friend's large collection back here after his death, I had vivid thoughts of hundreds of model aircraft taking to the wing if a roof was blown off and large model boxes pulled up and out. Luckily, they stayed put. We're pretty lucky that the gales have been a bit blown out before they get to the East Coast, but we still had gusts up to 90 mph, and the odd tiny tornado appeared around the area.

It's a big old garage made of those prefabricated concrete panels, all bolted together. About 12 years ago our neighbour decided to remove their breeze block ( Cinder Block ) garage, which was only about 10 years old. I explained that they needed to leave the concrete retaining wall that it was fastened to, as it supported my garage. When I got back, the new fence was already up. Between the fence and garage was a strip of new concrete. I thought that all was well, but within months my garage started to subside. They had simply removed the retaining wall and had just put a skim of cement over the compacted clay. They weren't bothered and just blamed the builder. As I didn't have a name for him, I couldn't. My youngest son was just waiting to go into the Royal Navy and had a bit of spare time, so we dug deep, placed large slabs under the garage wall, then used two large trolly jacks to raise the concrete columns. This done, we built a brick wall as a support, then backfilled with ballast and cement. It still sags a little in the middle, but I think it will be ok for a while. I was still a bit concerned about the roof, so I laid strips of wood and some steel conduit under strong metal braces. This has actually made it very strong. I think the added weight, while not excessive will keep things safe.

My plan is to have a major cleanout later this year. Then I will build new racks to keep all the models in. We'll see how that pans out. I was supposed to do it last year!