If predictions for our own weather expectations along the South Coast are anything to go by, it's going to ruin my sanity as well.

The experts reckon it's going to be drier and hotter, but they also say the winds that have blown harder and longer than usual the past month are going to come around a lot more often.

I can cope with the dry and the heat. I have got used to having a less than lush garden, or no garden at all as I do my bit for water conservation and refrain from turning on the tap.

And when the sun sizzles in summer I retreat to the beach.

But the wind really does my head in. And the consequences can be catastrophic for the rest of the family.

And August is the month I dread the most. It's the time of year when nothing but an ill wind blows, day after day.

And with the big blow come my own big blow-ups. For some reason, listening to the leaves being tossed around by 100km winds makes me crankier and less tolerant than usual.

The less-than-gentle breezes - usually a north-westerly gale - that come rushing through the valley in which I live not only stir up the dust and debris but also my irritability.

So you can imagine my mood last weekend when I went to bed on Friday night in the dark after a falling tree bought down the power lines and woke up to find the garden furniture no longer in the garden.

And when the bluster blows during Saturday sports - when as a good mother you're expected to watch your progeny prance around a court, a soccer field or bush track - the grump-o-metre goes off the scale.

I was starting to worry that maybe I was alone in my airstream ailments so, like all good hypochondriacs, I googled. It seems turbulence is troublesome for many of us sensitive to sudden squalls.

In a pharmacological journal - great reading for those who like to self-diagnose and medicate - I found a study that links these seasonal winds to an increase in traffic accidents, crime and suicide rates.