She came and went like a storm in the night. The evidence: vague anecdotes, rumours, tall-stories, and then the physical wreckage. Fallen branches blocking the road; majestic trees, standing for over forty years brought to their knees in a single encounter. Water cascades from the fields and clings to the edge of the road, eating away at anything manmade with a bird-like appetite: barely noticeable yet inexorable. And the only eyewitness? The boy. The boy who stood square to the storm and broke through the twisting tumult into the blue-eyed calm at the centre. And the wounds. All over my body and mind. Gore eventually fades to scar tissue but, like the erroded country lane, it can be patched temporarily yet it will be conspicuous forever. "Storms are always female where I'm from", she says. "I know", I reply. You might have vitisted from across the pond, but the dialect of love is the same.