I'm sure you were the envy of your neighborhood. We have a few homes that have added generators since the BIG freeze of 2021. One of the homes, owned by a plumber, had the foresight to add a generator when it was built several years ago. His house always stands out with lighting no matter what kind of bad weather we have. We do have a propane heater to use if needed, but it hardly does the job in our house. We would install a generator but our house is poorly designed and we don't plan on staying here for retirement. So we freeze lol.
Totally with you there, Tiffany. I love the rain as well. As a kid i'd have my red rain poncho with white dots, when I wore it I looked like a mushroom.
I'd go out in the rain no umbrella all wrapped up in my hooded mushroom poncho, walk into nearby fields looking for tadpoles in the puddles.
....And then, after the rains, the sun would come out and there would be that unmistakable scent in the air, the scent of rain-soaked earth, happy earth, replete with water. Like the earth was sighing with relief after being parched for days on end.
Tiffany, I do hope that Ercot is wrong and their prediction for a winter like 2021 will not come true.
Park close to me I walked round day after and there was no obvious indication of the storm, very little debris, no fallen trees, surprisingly many houses back on to the park and no fences were down apart from one that was in a poor state before the storm.
I had a Nana too. She had funny weather sayings like, "if the cows are laying down it's going to rain". 
The cows and rain is one I heard of too, makes sense, they'll lay down on a dry bit.Sorry to hear that two people died in your storm. I just hate to hear that sad news from any storm. Storm damage can be fixed, but lost lives are such a tragedy.
I'm so glad to hear your close neighborhood park did okay through the storm. Sorry there were fences down though. Fences down can be a challenge when people have pets.
I never really thought about the leaves taking some weight off of trees in the winter, hence helping to give them some edge on potential storm damage. Our leaves are still falling this year. It's been such a warm fall. My back property is covered with oak tree leaves and I'm having heck with keeping the leaves out of the pool.
Are most of your days in London throughout the winter usually cloudy? I hope you get some sun to brighten your day soon. I'll virtually send some sun over across the pond.
Oh yes, with climate change, our extreme weather is often a smaller version of yours, unfortunately. Stay safe.
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