29th January

 Last week was a week of tunnel watching.

Two storms came over the whole of the country.

One on Sunday night into Monday morning, and the second on Tuesday night and well into Wednesday.

The Sunday night one was looking like it was going to be the worst, and with it coming in from the south west that makes it even worse for us.

We can usually take winds coming from the east, north and straight out of the west, but south westerly winds are the ones that create the worst damage.

The reason for them being the worst, is that we have Castellaw hill close by, it is not that high standing at only 250 meters, but as the crow flies only just over one mile away from the farm.

And what happens, if there is a recorded wind speed of 70 mph, the wind shots over the top, some of the wind then drops down to ground level, and by the time it is almost at the farm it collides with the wind that has been blowing over the top of the hill and generates more power just as it hits the tunnels.

This south westerly wind is what flattened the tunnel hoops two years ago.

Leaving a tunnel looking like a giant has just walked past and stood on top of a tunnel flattening everything.

At times like this if we see the tunnel hoops bending it is far better to cut the polythene.

North, West, and east winds we have nothing in its path for miles, and it is usually flying objects that rip tunnels, but never destroy a frame.

So south westerly winds require tunnel watching and walking round with a knife just in case.

So, it was a late night on Sunday and fingers crossed.

In the tunnels the wind gusts at times through Sunday night sounded like a jumbo jet was flying past just over the tunnels

Luckily the wind turned into more westerly, and although it was very strong both on Sunday night and Tuesday night, we never had any damage to the polythene.

The irrigation has been broken in loads of places, just with it getting shook all over the place as the tunnels were moving.

But that is an easy fix, so far so good.