Killer Coconuts

11am

I find it quite amusing that I came here to avoid being in the Baltic Sea on a ship (for work), and now am in pretty much the same weather, if not worse. I suppose at least I avoided the sea-sickness. Hurricane Florence is only a Category 1, but that has confined us to our houses. The power went out at 5am, so I am feeling pretty greasy with the combination of no shower (the water runs on an electric pump) and no airconditioning. Not to mention decidedly curly-haired. We can't even go outside for a walk due to the threats of falling coconuts (no, really, I'm serious) and renegade mailboxes, garage roofs, power lines and palm fronds.

We are reduced to listening to a small battery-operated radio in the candlelight, with perhaps the most annoying radio announcer of all time. Her chirpy updates from her cosy studio is driving Lisa to tears, interspersed with "news" consisting largely of call-ins from local businesses telling us how resilient they are, and a hell of a lot of advertising from companies making incontinence accessories for the elderly. 24,000 of us are without power on the island - nearly 80% of homes. There isn't much information coming out from the power company, who are no doubt hiding in their generator-powered houses. Bermuda has overground electricity, which isn't that smart considering the relatively frequent hurricanes.

Turns out Simon was right with his dry comment last night "Oh it's really dull now. Unless the roof blows off, it's going to be really boring".

One minor excitement is the stupid photos that Lisa and I took yesterday are apparently on the BBC website (see pic 8, taken by yours truly albeit in a slightly staged way ... I wanted a picture of a large black Bermudian woman wearing a showercap but missed her!) Going for yet another nap ... more soon.

1.30pm

They said it would get better, but it hasn't. No not the hurricane , the radio announcer. We are now suffering through Calypso music hosted by a languid West Indian. As the station tries to phone the Weather Bureau (completely hanging up sometimes or getting call-waiting interruptions) we decide to take yet another nap...

3pm

After a day spent trying to amuse ourselves by eating too many pretzels, drinking Dark 'n Stormys, sleeping, and finally resorting to watching a few episodes of South Park on the laptop before the battery ran out, we have survived! The power is back on, we are all madly emailing friends and family, checking out Lisa's photos and contemplating the luxury of actually leaving the house. But darkness looms on the horizon - there is a brand new Tropical Storm "7" approaching, due to hit Thursday. I am wondering if I'll EVER get a tan, let alone be allowed to leave.