Beaten by the wind..

Other

OK ... This following true story happened to me a several years ago. Fortunately (or unfortunately) there was no one else around to witness it but I still felt highly embarrassed about what happened. I was on holiday in North Wales for the week, and we had some pretty awful weather. Mega high winds were blowing all along the Welsh coast. Close to where I was staying, there was a small mountain, which I used to climb up every morning just after breakfast. It was on the third day of my holiday that this following experience happened.

As usual, I donned my Navy blue Adidas tracksuit bottoms, a white T-shirt and the tracksuit jacket to match. Although it was terrifically windy I wasn't actually that cold so I didn't bother to zip up my top. Climbing the mountain was quite fun actually, being buffeted by the wind, gusts were nearly knocking me flying!.

When I reached near the top I was actually behind a sort of small cliff which was shielding me from the strongest winds. But there was a large gap between another small cliff and it was through here that I could see and hear the wind roaring through fiercly.

Me being the sort of joker that I am decided that I would venture out into this gap to see how strong the wind actually was there. So I took those fateful steps beyond the safety of the cliff to face the winds. I seriously underestimated the power of the wind.

It all happened so quickly. The moment I ventured out, the wind just blasted me. Both my arms were blown straight back behind me. In the next instant my tracksuit jacket was gone. I was wearing it but didn't have it zipped up. The wind just blew it straight off my shoulders, off my back and completely off my arms before I could even do anything about it!!. I was then blown straight over and knocked to the ground. I managed to get back onto my feet but the wind just blew me back and I was forced to seek the refuge of the safety of the cliff.

I couldn't believe it!. The wind had managed to blow my lightweight tracksuit jacket completely off my body!. I looked to see where it had blown off to (thinking I could just go and grab it). But there was no chance of that. In a slightly stunned state, I watched my tracksuit blow through the air as if it were a plastic bag. It wasn't blowing along the ground as you might think but was just flying away, through the air. It didn't take long to go out of sight, who knows where it finally ended up. Those gales must have blown it away for miles!!.

I have never experienced any winds as strong as that!. When the wind first ripped my tracksuit jacket off and knocked me to the ground, I honestly thought that it had blown my T-shirt off as well!! Now that would have been embarrassing!

It was bad enough coming back down the mountain with just my T-shirt when all my family had seen me go up the mountain with my Adidas jacket on my back.

I've never heard the end of it and I always get teased about it whenever we have high winds!

Andrew.