It was a hot, ferocious wind. We thought surely it couldn't last. It would die down by the evening. It did not. It would go away overnight. Nor did it do that. It wouldn't last to the following day. Wrong again.

Despite the wind, my husband was determined to grill the turkey thighs we were having for dinner on the barbecue. It's a gas barbecue and the wind kept extinguishing the flame. I offered to do the turkey pieces indoors, but he said he'd simply protect the barbecue and he commenced to do just that. But it required that he check repeatedly to ensure it hadn't gone out again, which it did, on several occasions, before the thighs were properly done. So we had a late dinner that night.

While we were still at the dinner table there was a ring at the front door, setting off our alarm system; our apricot toy poodle began barking hysterically at the interruption. It was one of our neighbours who lives on the street behind ours. His wife, looking out her kitchen window was amazed to see one of our bedroom windows was lying askew inside its frame, jutting out over the deck. He'd come to alert us, good soul.

Up we went, to have a look at what the wind had managed to do ... along with our own carelessness in not being sufficiently alert to the potential of that occurring, since our windows crank open and on windy days they're susceptible, as has occurred before, to being flung about. Never like this, however. It was obvious that the hinges had been badly compromised and the danger was that the window, a very large one, might be hurtled under the continuing force of the wind, entirely off its track and onto the canopy covering the deck below.

My husband hurriedly began to unscrew the complex, tight-fitting hinges from their secure perch on the window frame, where they were also, of course, attached to the window itself, which kept it from complete collapse. His purpose was eventually attained and he was able to lift the window, now unsecured, into the bedroom. We are now without a central window in a series of three on that wall, while my husband tries to figure out how he'll ameliorate the situation, fix up the window and the frame with new hinges and get them to operate smoothly.

The screen still fits into the frame, and over that is the separately-hinged stained glass window that swings into the bedroom or which can be closed to cover the now-windowless window area, although not as snugly and airtight as the window itself. Sigh.