Flying Off The Handle

We're in a heat wave here, but at the same time we've had very strong winds the last few days.

On Thursday, I was away for most of the day; and knowing it would be hot, but not knowing it would be so windy, I left two sunshades up on my balcony.

When I got home in the evening, looking up towards my balcony as I was approaching the house, there was no sunshade at all to be seen. Neither on my balcony, nor on the lawn below. Big mystery! No one else has a key to my apartment right now.

Out on the balcony, I found that the smaller sunshade had blown inwards and fallen onto the balcony floor, holder and all. (The holder had been attached to the parapet.) The bigger sunshade was nowhere to be seen. It had been standing upright in a big water-filled stand on the floor, not right next to the parapet but a bit further in. The empty stand was still there, but the sunshade, shaft included, was simply gone.

I was almost beginning to suspect the next-balcony-neighbour kids to have been playing some trick on me, when I caught sight of something white sticking up from some bushes below, a bit to the side. I went down to have a closer look, and found my sunshade resting peacefully upside-down in the bushes. The wind must have come in from below, simply lifted the whole thing, shaft and all, right out of its holder, turned it sort of sideways (because there is another balcony above), blown it over the parapet, and then sideways again down into the bushes. That must have been a sight. A sunshade/umbrella playing Mary Poppins all by itself...