windy day

Gone With the Wind

Forever Amber | Gone with the wind

gold Choies midi skirt

Kate Spade 2 Park Ave Beau Bag

A few weeks after we moved into our new house last summer, I woke up one morning to discover that the bed was shaking underneath me.

Uh-oh.

I lay as still as possible for a few minutes to assess the situation and, yup, there it was again – a light trembling, every few seconds, reverberating up through the mattress, as if coming from somewhere within the house itself.

UH-OH.

Terry had gotten up before me, so this shaking couldn’t be explained by his snoring or twitching, or anything like that, so as far as I could tell, there were four possible explanations for what I was experiencing:

1. EARTHQUAKE OMG

2. HOUSE FALLING DOWN OMG

3. DEMONIC POSSESSION OMG

4. I had contracted a rare, deadly disease, in which the body mimicked the same sensation you would normally only experience during an earthquake, or a demonic possession, say. So rare was this disease that the medical profession would be utterly baffled by it, and I would spend the rest of my days feeling like the house was falling down around me. On the plus side, though, I would probably get a disease named after me. Silver linings, people, silver linings.

windy dayScotland doesn’t tend to get a lot of earthquakes, and our house is fairly new, so it was obvious to me that options 3 and four were the only credible explanations for the phenomenon. Unwilling to face such hard truths that early in the morning, however, when Terry appeared at the bedroom door, bringing me a mug of coffee, I decided to go with option 2, and solemnly informed him that our brand new house was in the process of falling down around us. This is why Terry gets up earlier than me and brings me coffee: I’m really not a morning person.

Now, as much as I didn’t want the house to be falling down, I also kind of DID want the house to be falling down, because at least that would be better than the alternatives, right? I mean, give me a falling-down-house over a demonic possession ANY DAY. So when I broke the news to Terry, what I was really hoping for was some validation of what I was experiencing: an “oh, yeah, the shaking bed thing? I’ve noticed that too!” perhaps. Anything, in other words, to reassure me that I wasn’t mad. Or, you know, possessed.

“You’re mad,” said Terry, placing the coffee on my bedside table. “I should really have made this stronger.”

And then he turned and walked away, leaving me to my fears. I worried compulsively about The Shaking, as I came to think of it, for a few hours, and then, as is my way, completely forgot about it… until one December morning last year, when I was woken in the night by the sound of the wind battering against the windows, and realised that, once again, the bed was shaking underneath me.

“Oh yeah,” I thought, “I’m possessed by a demon! Totally forgot about that!”

I lay there for a few minutes, feeling gradually more freaked out, then I got up to go to the bathroom… at which point I realised that it wasn’t just the bed: the whole HOUSE was shaking.

OMG.

I went to the bathroom (shaking), and as I re-entered the bedroom (also shaking), I noticed Terry was awake. Thank God! “Terry,” I begun, “Remember that…”

“Yes,” he said, “I can feel it too: you’re not mad. This time.”

Our house is three storeys high and sits on top of a hill which, the previous owner told us, is actually the highest point in the district. The third floor is occupied by the master bed/bath, and is tucked under the eaves of the house: it turns out that any-time we get high winds, that top floor shakes. Like, a LOT. This winter may have been relatively mild, but it’s also been the windiest one anyone can remember, which means we’ve spent most of the winter being buffeted by high winds and feeling the floor shake beneath our feet. It also means that it’s been almost impossible to take outfit photos lately, because even on days when I’m NOT stupid enough to try to wear a full skirt on a windy day, the majority of the photos end up like this:

hair monster
Or, you know, WORSE.

Or, you know, WORSE.

If you live near me, and were out and about this Saturday afternoon, there’s a good chance you saw my underwear at some point. I am so sorry. There goes the neighbourhood, huh? It just wasn’t like this until the damn fashion bloggers moved on in.

Can it just be spring now? Pretty please?

gold midi skater skirt

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books by Amber Eve
COMMENTS
  • New blog post is up, featuring what NOT to wear when it’s windy: http://t.co/CJnhNQZqOT #ootd #fbloggers #scottishbloggers #scotbloggers

    March 10, 2014
  • Beautiful, stylish outfit. LOVE the sunglasses :o) Xx

    Makeup by Candlelight

    March 10, 2014
  • Glad it wasn’t demonic possession. I hear those are the worst!~ Love the outfit and love how you really made the wind work for you in the first couple of shots 🙂

    March 10, 2014
  • Yeek. When the wind hit our old flat (top floor, totally exposed, beside the sea) in the right/wrong way, one wall in the bedroom used to vibrate. I wouldn’t have minded the MOTION but it made a buzzing sound at the same time. Drove me nuts.

    March 10, 2014
  • I dunno, I kind of liked the idea of you having a disease named after you.

    Excellent outfit.

    March 10, 2014
  • Vance

    REPLY

    Some years back I saw a good discussion about planting around the house with shrubs and trees to cause the air flow to go up and over the house. If you are buying the house, it might be worth looking into. I think I saw it in Mother Earth News, not sure. Having grown up in California, I got used to the Earth Quakes, but one day my mom was sitting, in the bathroom, when one hit. You should have heard her screaming!

    March 10, 2014
  • A few weeks after we moved into our new (to us) house we were awakened in the middle of the night with the house shaking. Turned out to be an earthquake and turned out we now live in the same state as some of the worst earthquakes in US history (and it is not California.) As we sat in bed all I could think of was the few weeks before when our insurance agent asked if we wanted to pay a pittance extra for earthquake coverage and my husband refused saying, “What are the odds?”

    March 10, 2014
  • Oh dear! Shaky house is not good! I had the same thing in our old house, but rather than the wind, it was big trucks going by. I remember my mirror shaking against the wall.

    Then our ceiling fell down because the shaking caused the old plaster to come loose. and our landlord said that it was due to us jumping about in the rooms above and tried to make us pay for it. Which was total hokum, of course! Now he hasn’t given us our bond back. Or, should I say, hasn’t responded to any contact we have tried to make. Give me my money back! Do you know how many midi skirts I could buy with £1000????? A lot. Probably.

    This one is lovely and it is now on my agenda to grow my own collection. I should stop with the dress thing. Ok, not stop, just slow down.

    I got the makeup remover – thanks for recommending it.

    Corinne x

    March 10, 2014
      • Yeah, I have sent a very snotty e-mail. It’s a bit tricky though because we don’t have the landlords details, just this guy who looked after everything but he is saying he doesn’t work for the landlord anymore and he has sold this house but we know this isn’t true because our current landlord, who saved us after doing a repair on our old house and knew how rubbish old landlord was bc they never paid him and offered us current house, got a text from him asking for him to do some paint work at our old house!

        I don’t even know if he has read the e-mail, it’s been a week. I’m going to contact citizens advice but I’m not sure how we can do it if all we have is his name and this number/email of this other guy!

        March 12, 2014
  • Oh my gosh I love the skirt! Full skirts on windy days FTW! And I also love the whole vintage feel of this shoot 🙂

    thelocaltouriste.wordpress.com

    March 11, 2014
  • Latest blog post is here –> http://t.co/R6uDRJJupR #ootd #fbloggers http://t.co/vXEoX8KHLk

    March 11, 2014
  • I love the skirt!

    March 12, 2014
  • I realise this makes me very sounds shallow indeed, but I HAVE TO HAVE THAT SKIRT! Do you know if there are any UK stockists? Ta x

    April 16, 2014
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