On this very day in 1986 we finally left Essex and moved to Cornwall. It was the day on which the energy sucked out of Hurricane Charley by an Atlantic storm system swept huge amounts of rain and gale-force winds across Britain and Ireland. Records were broken. Our furniture was going into storage for several months and we watched in horror as the removal people loaded it into their van in the pouring rain (it survived). Off we trundled, two rattled and knackered parents, two little kids, two distressed cats and two ramshackle cars through terrible weather on the 300-mile drive to Bude. I don't know where we got the energy from to do it. But we've never looked back, not for a single minute. We had the same kind of weather on our wedding day in 1976. We're still here!