Austen, Boelo: double whammy

Storm season starts 1st September [you have to start somewhere] but the first named storm "Austen" slugged in from the Atlantic last Th/Fr night NullSchoolWind windspeed snapshot 20:00 22Oct26 [L]. At Caislean Blob, it has been standard policy at least this year, maybe a bit longer, to heed MetÉireann's weather warnings and park the car in the next county, if the deluge is scheduled for overnight. I've been banned [you're too decrepit for that nonsense you blitherin' old ninny] from nipping out of the house at 02:00 with a head torch and mattock "I'm awa' off to see to the drains". I did clean the drains of this year's brambles, but in advance, in daylight, indeed in the sunshine. It's part of adulting in the country that y'have to do this every year. It's a chore. But a single bramble is like steel wire, and can snag a water-impelled twig; which may catch another twig with leaves; which holds back a trundling rock long enough that a clot of dead sycamore leaves forms a dam . . . and…