Over to Chris for an update on the freakish weather conditions (and our breach in the sea wall) in the sleepy little South West of England which I call home…

You wouldn’t believe it, especially after all the weather troubles we’ve been having here in the West Country over the past couple of weeks, but at noon or thereabouts today, North Devon and West Somerset were subjected to a…….guess what?….an earthquake!!  Okay, it wasn’t exactly earth-shattering (as they say!), but it measured 4.5 on the Richter Scale, and was felt as far south as Exeter, apparently.  Fancy that!  What next, I wonder?  Waterspouts up the Teign Estuary, or maybe a tsunami or three; or was it a Satsuma?

I’ve been looking at the works going on down below, and it’s encouraging to see that, at the points where there have been actual breaches in the sea wall, they have been installing a giant triple line of deep concrete slabs between the railway line and the parapet wall, and, I think, filling the gaps between these slabs with liquid concrete – all mighty stuff, and a great new line of defence if the wall breaks again at these points.  Of course, it doesn’t cater for the scenario (love that word!) of the sea wall breaking at a different point where there aren’t these slabs, but at least it’s something.  I’ll send you some photo’s if you like, but I haven’t taken any yet so far.

(I hope our man sends more photographs.)