In the early hours of this morning I flinched in my sleep and then awoke with a start…would my boat be all right in the sudden onslaught of the south-westerly gale which was now rattling the bedroom window? For a second or two I tried to measure the gusts and imagined my Contessa 32 charging this way and that as she tugged at her reins, spindrift whipping across the deck. Then I remembered she was safely laid up.

The long stretch of windless, high pressure weather is over.