A wind has sprung up overnight and blows strong, fast and slightly cold throughout the whole day. We take a walk along the beach into it—sand flies everywhere. No sandflies. It is one of the strongest winds I can remember, especially for this time of year. The following day I look at the weather maps. I see that a tropical low/monsoon trough coming down from the equator joined with a cold-front low blowing up from the southern ocean (followed by a high pressure system). This would have created the conditions necessary for extra wind to blow up from the south, and that’s exactly what happened. Nephew points out that it’s interesting this wind happened at the same time as storms in the UK, and wonders if they are connected. But my reference maps don’t stretch that far.