Sabine

She arrived at 3:58 am. I had yet another sleepless night and heard the first object being thrown about outdoors. Checked internet and saw the official warning started at 4:00 am and at this point fell asleep at last.

Around 9:00 Angie came in as I was downing the first cup of coffee to say come & help. Was a bit surprised as there was no rain and the treetops seemed from the sitting room to be simply dancing about.

Amazed to see the huge sliding door to the horse stables had been torn from its railing & dumped a few meters away. The plastic glazed greenhouse had lost a few panels which was not surprising. The large (5x8m?) chicken conservatory roof had gone.

And just as I got out, a massive thunderstorm with lightning directly above us threw down buckets of horizontal rain & more strong winds. It was quite frightening for a good half hour, especially seeking shelter under the metal horse stable roof.

There was nothing to do but pray. When it stopped, the sun came out & winds died down a bit, did some garden inspection. Sadly all of the trees I am forbidden from felling are all standing but there were some large branches on the drive I needed to clear with the chainsaw. Others I have left for now. One bit of good news, the huge spruce on the edge of our property which was probably going to block our satellite TV reception lost the top 5m and so will no longer grow.

Angie wants to repair the unrepairable stable sliding door. Think she has a plan. Suspect my suggestion that I need to build a new one might be accepted in a week or so. Not a problem as we have enough new sawn planks from trees knocked down in previous storms.

Too windy in the evening to walk out in the open so sought the comparative safety of the forest. Quite a few trees knocked over or been snapped in half but not quite as bad as I thought. Luna & I had to clamber over at least half a dozen.

More to come tonight with some snow added.

An extra photo of some of the damage - the map shows the lightning strikes south-west of Munich towards Switzerland, Lichtenstein & our area is circled. One strike was close to the spot of the main photograph.