{"id":319,"date":"2020-02-22T14:09:59","date_gmt":"2020-02-22T14:09:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=319"},"modified":"2020-02-22T14:27:04","modified_gmt":"2020-02-22T14:27:04","slug":"weathering-the-storm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/weathering-the-storm\/319\/","title":{"rendered":"Weathering The Storm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Wyn paused – mid-shuffle – bringing the whole of his deliberation to bear on the weather forecast. ” …\u00a0 Storm Delme continues to gather pace, with winds of 60 miles an hour sweeping into coastal areas, bringing with it heavy squalls of rain …” His heart beat a little faster. Then he re-focused his attention on the considerable task of placing one foot in front of the other and inched his way from the kitchen to the hall, where his coat hung on a hook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The two young women working in the beach cafe knew him as the elderly gentleman with bent shoulders, whose head stuck out from beneath his cap like a tortoise.  And he moved, of course, s – o  _ v – e -r – y  _  s – l – o- w – l – y . Yet, there was something about him that checked any thought of poking fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This morning, with the storm raging and every new arrival\nblowing in through the door like a piece of debris, there was a knock-about\natmosphere in the cafe. People laughed as they flattened their hair and flapped\nat their clothes, trying to knock off the worst of the rain, and customers\nturned to look and joined in with the laughter: “It’s a wild one out\nthere, alright!” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wyn sat stooped over a cup of coffee and a pastry, reading a\nnewspaper from the rack. He looked up from time to time, with no discernible\nsmile. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Have you heard there was a Second World War bomb washed\nup here, yesterday?” A man in his 30s was leaning on the counter, relaxed\nand confident-looking, half-facing the customers, and speaking loudly enough for\nthe whole room to hear, but with his head turned towards the young woman\nserving him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” somebody answered.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wyn was looking up from his paper. “It’s news to\nme,” he said, his voice, thin and shaky, as if it didn’t come out often. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“They found one up in the fields a couple of years ago …” someone called from another table. “One of them … detectorists …”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I bet he got a shock!” laughed the man at the counter. “You don’t think of it as an extreme sport, do you?” There was a general chuckle in the room. Wyn laughed, too, although you wouldn’t have seen it in his face. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was time to go. He rose from his seat and shuffled his way\nacross the floor, a cup and saucer in one hand and a plate in the other. 5\nminutes to get to the bus stop around the corner. The young women smiled at\nhim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He boarded the bus, then rang the bell as soon as it pulled\naway. It dropped him off just 100 yards up the hill. He stood for a moment on\nthe pavement. The rain slapped his face and the wind unsteadied him. His head\nwas full of the surging sea, the news of the bomb and the faces in the cafe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He inched towards home. Life was good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wyn paused – mid-shuffle – bringing the whole of his deliberation to bear on the weather forecast. ” …\u00a0 Storm Delme continues to gather pace, with winds of 60 miles an hour sweeping into coastal areas, bringing with it heavy squalls of rain …” His heart beat a little faster. Then he re-focused his attention […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[121,164],"tags":[184,183],"class_list":["post-319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-121","category-desire","tag-storm","tag-weathering"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-59","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":324,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions\/324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}