On tuesday night, a nasty severe storm unexpectedly developed out of a rain bearing depression which was forecast. The system then however slipped out into the R. Plate (which is pretty wide off Uruguay) , intensified, and after dark and without warning, slammed all along the coast, with wind speeds that put it in hurricane 2 and 3 class. It hit us, in eastern Montevideo, around 9 at night, and continued wildly for about 7 hours. At least 8 people died and more were injured, there was a lot of damage to property and in Montevideo civic parks and gardens alone around 2000, two thousand, trees were uprooted. (pictured, a beautiful blue cedar keeled over in the grounds around my husband’s office in a grand old mansion) Buildings were unroofed or lost tiles. Windows were blown in. Phone services, land and mobile,were out for several hours, and over 40,000 homes lost electricity and/or water even mains gas, in some areas for nearly 24 hours. We had water, in the front garden hose only, but without the electricity to pump the water into around the house etc ( we’re in a very low water pressure area) we had to cart water in a bucket until our power came back on early next afternoon, about 15 hours after losing it. We did have gas, though, so were able to make cups of tea, at least. For all that time the house alarm was in beep mode, once every 5 seconds, to let us know it was running on backup battery. I could have done without that feature, at least.

Oh, and the leather stuff?
all the repeat units/blocks are now on the backing, and it is ready to be sandwiched and basted. I discovered that they all needed to be machined around to prevent lifting or worse, fraying. This means really I now need to consider a ‘compatible’quilting technique – free machining; fine hand quilting like seed stitch or birds feet; french knots possibly – they’d look great – nah, I think I’ll procrastinate this afternoon and go downtown with my friend Virginia to look for some leather tools. I need a punch for another idea, and need hand sewing needles at least…and some heavier threads….