The cold wind and rain arrived on Cape Cod this week, soon after we did and an old folk song with 'cold wind and rain' in the lyrics has rattled around in my head ever since. Monday we went to Head of the Meadows beach to watch the surf.

A few lifeguards were standing in a huddle on the beach. Were they there for a training exercise? Had they just completed a rescue? Were they just checking to see that no one was fool emough to go in the water? Or, were they, like us, just stopping to appreciate the sea in its fierce majesty? We will probably never know.

The fierce wind tattered our ponchos. Fiona complained of the stinging drivenr ain, and we found brief shelter in a makeshift fort on the beach. Soon we headed for drier venues. Fiona and I climbed to the top of Cape Cod Lighthouse were we could watch the storm from comfortable safety.

Later, we climbed Pilgrem Tower. It was a great climb to the top but up that high, the wind was even stronger, so we did not tarry. In the museum we looked at various dolls which kind of creeped out Fiona. The faces portrayed a mix of sadness and steely determination. There were not smiles our other signs of joy. Was this from their creators' struggles with the elements or some religous belief espousing dourness?

In the evening, Kim and Fiona ran out to do some errands and I sat quietly in the trailer. The wind whipped around the trailer producing howling shrieks as it shook the foundation. There was the sound of some distant bass drum or at least something heavy hitting the side of any empty container such as a branch hitting the side of a trailor.

Outside, the light had an eerie light blue tint most likely as the cloud and rain captured the light from older mercury vapor lamps instead of the warmer orange light of newer sodium vapor lamps.

In the distance,there was a low constant roaring, similar to the sound of an old furnace that you could hear from the distant recesses of a large frarm house. Yet this sound was more likely from the constant beating of the surf on a far away beach.

Sleep came at last and this morning as light returned we saw the continuing cold wind and rain.