The Easter holiday weekend approached with a warning. We prepared for Dave’s arrival on the Saturday. I rearranged all the potted plants, gathered more flowers for the house, and brought plenty of logs in for the wood-burning stove—the temperature was dropping by the hour. Further north in Scotland snow was forecast, but being a few miles inland from the sea we expected only rain. He arrived waving frilly petticoats of yellow daffodils. I put them in a vase in the hallway—they scented the air throughout the house and I was heady with it.
Sunday Lunch
We asked the grandchildren what they’d like to eat the next day for Sunday lunch—it wouldn’t be warm enough to sit outdoors—and they chose ‘Toad in the Hole’, a dish of sausages baked in the oven surrounded by pillowy mounds of batter; a hearty meal when accompanied with roasted vegetables and gravy.
Bedtime
On Saturday evening, we waited until the children had gone to bed before laying out a few chocolate treats on the breakfast table, hidden amongst animal decorations—hedgehogs, white swans, Easter bunnies. I rubbed my eyes and we called it a night.
Dave wasn’t able to rest. He kicked at an invisible football; ran with it, picked it up, twisted and dodged the opposition; with speed and force he hurtled.
I’d been nestled in bed, trying to sleep. Sometime, around midnight, the witching hour, Dave stopped messing and got serious.
‘Look what I can do, do, doooo’ he roared.
My bedroom window faced west. On a clear sunny day I could look out through the trees, past the agricultural landscape of hedges and fields, on towards the purple and grey Cheviot Hills. This night, I stood in my pyjamas and stared at the bare tree branches. They shuddered. I shuddered.
Twigs as long as my arm broke off and threw themselves in all directions. I stepped away from the window glass, backed into the room for safety, as the line of mature trees swayed like crazy. In unison they leant forwards as if taking a curtain call, then they stood and took a breath before bending backwards to test their roots.
I clambered back into bed. Then, an almighty racket. Something on the roof. Scratching, snarling, cranking—a metallic grinding. My mobile phone confirmed I should be asleep: 02.34. Something must have come adrift—the spinning cowl, the metal flue. Too dangerous for outside pursuits. On high alert, I was attentive to every sound: wharrrrgh-eeeeeek-wharrrrgh-eeeeeeek. Rhythmic, repetitive, menacing.
Dave—such an innocuous name, innocent, even friendly. But I wasn’t fooled. I knew it was all his doing—the damaged trees, my disturbed sleep, and whatever it was that scraped across the roof in the night.
Next Morning
Easter Sunday: morning, and the sun shone. The trees had settled. Dave, of course, was nowhere to be seen. He left with his guilt; had packed his bags and moved east to the North Sea.
A pair of wood pigeons cooed to each other in the courtyard. It must have been a rough night for them I commented as the children landed for breakfast. I poured tea from the pot and watched them daintily pick silver foil from chocolates. They were in their nightclothes still and had slept soundly. With half an ear listening to the grown-ups’ conversation as they sucked on candied chocolate drops that fizzed on their tongues, they asked, ‘who’s Dave?’
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Reflection
Interestingly, in the UK our storm names are chosen by a group of meteorologists from three countries: the Met Office in the UK, Met Eireann in Ireland, and KNMI in the Netherlands. I imagine representatives of each organisation sitting around a table once a year, drinking coffee and making lists.
Storm Dave was at its height in Scotland at 02.34 on Sunday 5 April, 2026 and although it hadn’t been the first named storm we had experienced since moving to the area a year earlier, it was certainly the most ferocious with winds gusting to over 60 mph.
Storms are labelled alphabetically on an annual basis with names we might give our children. Remembering that my first boyfriend was called Dave, it made me stop a moment to think about the power of names and how their naming makes us respond to them. My memories of Dave are very sweet—he was gentle and kind. It struck me as being incongruous and nightmarish that his name should be attributed to this raging howling Easter storm.
Writing Challenge
Thinking about the Met Office and the naming of storms, write a piece that uses the alphabet. Start with A for the first paragraph and B for the second, and so on. The piece doesn’t necessarily have to be meteorological, but keep the subject matter tight and let the alphabetisation work its magic. It will provide a structure for your writing as well as a constraint, both of which will generate new ideas. Enjoy playing with the alphabet and let me know how you get on.
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Credits, Notes and Links
All images are my own.
More information about the naming of storms can be found here.
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Ha! I was with the kids wondering who Dave was....clever set up!
Ahh, a playful essay.