Here in deepest Mid Sussex we seem to have escaped the worst of the flooding, tree-topplings, tornados, power cuts and general mayhem caused by Storm Ciarán, the latest of a series of autumn storms to hit the UK.
We have still been lashed by rain, and struck by lightning, and deafened by thunder - that cannot be denied. But Mid Sussex folk are hardy, and won't be druv, and although lesser Britons may cower at Nature's angry response to past unwise man-made atmospheric modification, we in these parts hold our heads up and defy the gods.
But sadly some other places in the South East have been totally overwhelmed. And none worse than Deal, on the Kent coast. I've just spotted this picture on the BBC News website - surely a news organ one can trust - which shows the pier there turned completely upside down.
