For the past two days we have been in the teeth of a gale. I like that; gales have "teeth", wind "whistles", you can be out in a "biting" northerly. There is something very oral about wind, no doubt because it shares a common characteristic with humans: it blows.

Now it has to be said that a bit of wind doesn't faze us. I've lived in Wellington since 1979, Liz for the past 16 years, so we both qualify as full-blown citizens of New Zealand's capital city. As such, a measly day or so of 100 kilometre per hour breezes are nothing... hardly worth a mention, not even strong enough to make you have to hold on to rubbish bins for support.

But now that we're living on a boat and happen to be in the South of France we are subject to that freshest and Frenchest of breezes, Le Mistral. And being on a boat you certainly know when the wind is blowing, whistling and biting because the boat rocks and sways, creaks and groans, and bounces and rebounds on its ropes. Water slaps the hull, canvas flaps, loose things on the deck roll around and the world is in constant motion. It feels like an earthquake, one that lasts for days. And that's just when we're moored.

And thus it has been all yesterday, last night and today. The annoying thing is the Mistral isn't anywhere near as bad as an ordinary windy day in Wellington; it's gusting only to a mere - nay a paltry - 85 kph. Tchah! I laugh at your wind, you French peasants!

On the other hand, one of the other boats parted company with its mooring here at Beaucaire some time in the night, and we hear that a posse of boaties set off to rescue it from wherever it got to further down the canal this morning. Pity, because we missed all the action.

Also on the other hand (I really do need three hands) at least the French give their annoying wind a name. It isn't just "a northerly", it is "Le Mistral", originating (according to Wikipedia) from the Occitan (Provençal) word for "master". The online font of knowledge says, "The wind masters the population, knocking people off balance physically and out of their minds emotionally."

Knowing the Name of the Wind doesn't make it any more pleasant, but it is a lot more romantic than something labelled by its compass origin. So why then has Windy Wellington not taken the opportunity to personalise its own two demons, its northerly and southerly? You could call one The Master and the other The Mistress, though it's not as if there's a shortage of other more personal historical options. "Crikey, that's some Muldoon we had yesterday eh?!" is more entertaining than "How'd you get on in the northerly?" Or, "Jeepers, that Meads fair lifted the trampoline over the hedge this morning!"

Or choose from any of the famous Kiwi names and you could shelter from a Lomu, a Snell, a Hillary or a Helen. (Although, naming a wind after a politician has its issues. What if you found yourself in the teeth of a Clarke that forced you to lean to the right? A meteorological-political dilemma)

In the UK, if you're looking for a name to epitomise extreme damage caused by winds of unimaginable force, so strong as to be perhaps true winds of change, the sort that uproot three-hundred year-old oak trees, lift slate roofing tiles, bring down power lines and flatten the ambitions of the common man, then you are battening down for a Thatcher. That would be a wind that doesn't just blow; it handbags.

In the meantime we will tighten our ropes, batten down our hatches, shake our fists at the Mistral and shout defiantly, "Vive la resistance!"

A peaceful night's sleep would be good too.