Thunder and Lightning

Met Office

Dark skies, flashes of lightning, rumbles of thunder.  The sound of heavy rain lashing the Highways and byways around.  A continuous dripping hurries along at the back window, the gutters overflowing with the deluge.  The swishing sound as the rain lashes the street.  Cars, not always driving carefully, pass by splashing the water around.  The gutters cannot cope and rain sills across the road every so often lit up by the flashes, flashes which at least avoid the need to put a light on.  

The thunder moves further away, the rain eases, and all this reminds me of the day I was born.  Thunder, lightning, heaving rain storms, windows shaking and all this on an Edinburgh July.  The family interpreted this as a bad sign.  There are those who agree with them.

As the storm moves north east I hear a dog barking, a dog, that would hide under the bed trembling when fireworks explode is happy to want outside when thunder and lightning rage!

Similar rain, without much thunder, kept me in this morning.  The idea of walking in the drizzle did not appeal, especially as I knew what would follow.  Follow it did, heavy persistent rain, annoying those walking dogs that insisted in walking, and made me glad I remained indoors listening to the constant heavy dripping at the back window.  One day someone will fix those gutters.

This is not quite what Australia has been facing, it is not like the Indian monsoon, it is however, very like Autumn weather here.  Rain clouds coming up from the south west, carrying much of the Atlantic with them, brings a warmer atmosphere and a wetter rain.  Much better than the north west cold rain, often the remains of US hurricanes, of glorious memory.  That is, glorious because I do not see it as often as I once did.

Storm Liz

 

Summer is still here.  

I realised that at about 3 am when a tremendous clap of thunder brought me to life.  This was followed by the usual downpour hissing across the area.  At first I thought someone had fallen down the stairs, it was that sort of elongated rumble.  However, my interest peaked at this point and I closed my eyes as lightning flashed once again and I retuned to slumber.

I wondered if this storm could be a precursor to the announcement regarding one Liz Truss becoming Prime Minister.  I shall repeat that, 'Liz Truss has been announced as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom!'  Yes, the 0.34 of the population, or those unknowns living overseas who joined the Party just to vote for her, have given us Liz as PM.  

According to Suetonius in his 'Lives of the Twelve Caesars,' it struck me as interesting that when ever an Emperor was born an eagle was seen flying over Rome, lightning struck the Temple of Mars, and a woman gave birth to a horse with three heads.  I wonder if the lightning arrived last night in such a manner?  There has been no reports of eagles and less about strange creatures born to woman, until now at least, but it is worth keeping this in mind.

I noticed a sign on the 'Citizens Advice' centre door, 'Liz Truss PM : EMIGRATE!'

While the two previous PMs were a flop neither was as inept, lazy and possibly treasonous as Boris.  Now e have come one step further down the line.  A woman who's mind changes so often you begin to think she is a woman!  Much has been written by her backing from US billionaires who made their money from fossil fuels, and their right-wing policies are found in much of her scribbles over the years.  There is no doubt she is for the rich and wishes to ensure the cowed population behave as serfs, as she, and many other Tories, clearly intend.  There is a new level of spite and idiocy at the door, this leaves only one question: How long can she last?  I say gone before Christmas, unless she calls an election and wins.

Passing Showers

This passing shower took ages to pass, cleaning the streets and overflowing the gutters.  Jolly good I say as the streets needed a wash (remember the days when a lorry would spray water on the streets?) and while I saw no lightning and thunder was minimal over me it did show up elsewhere. 
This part of the land often has thunder after a few days heat.  When in London I sat in a pub on the Thames called the 'Mayflower.' This pub claims to be the oldest in London and also that the 'Mayflower' parked itself here to avoid taxes nearer London before heading out into the wild of the Atlantic Ocean.  Such things can never be proved but it had to dock somewhere nearby.
As we sat there a storm blew above.  Brave soul stood at the door leading to the jetty while lightning flashed across London easily seen from the view over the wide expanse of the Thames caused by the bend in the river at this point.  
I sat by the bar.  
Soon however the heavy downpour poured in through the door and the barman was to be found fighting the incoming tide of rainwater as it sloshed its way under the door.  Cries of "Man overboard etc" were to be heard.  
I sat by the bar.

Musing

I had a call on Thursday from the landlord's lassie.  She informed me he was arriving about three to look over the property.  This was kind of her as it gave me a couple of hours to hoover, clean, wash, scrub, and hide all the faults that I ought to have fixed, mended, repaired and painted long ago, indeed a very long time ago!  I must say he is a good landlord and his staff are excellent, I have no complaints there, but this year little has been done that ought to be done as I have been too busy!

Naturally he did not arrive although I had my excuses laid out for him.  

He has the eyes of a hawk and would see all the faults I have kindly hidden and he would not see the work I have done in maintenance, because it aint been done!  ooer!  I assumed he may come therefore on Friday so I took evasive action, wandered down to the bus station and got on the first bus to arrive. This at a time when I would rather have spent the day sleep after my exertions of the day before! However it was good to get the bus pass out and drive past fields of green, with a mist in the distance, or was it a house on fire, not to sure.  I wandered about the bits of boring Chelmsford that I had not been bored by before, and this without a camera to picture the one or two old and interesting buildings, mostly Victorian, that survive in the badly rebuilt town. The motor car has led to the pedestrianisation of the centre of town, which is fine, but there are dual carriageways running next too them which is less attractive, especially as old streets and buildings have been demolished for the important vehicle.  This may be practical but is not enhancing the city.  Some towns have managed to improve themselves even with an increase in vehicles and selfish drivers but far too many have knocked down good buildings for roadways.  It is not an attractive place now, practical but boring.

Of course as I returned footsore and weary he had not visited.  I might check tomorrow if I need to urgently visit Colchester!

Braintree Museum

Saturday at the museum began well.  The thunder and lightning overhead shook the house during the night and as I prepared my good looks in the morning the rain thundered down also as lightning continued to reverberate all around.  As I arrived the Big Boss grumpily let me in and muttered something about alarms.  Indeed the lightning had switched off all the alarms, knocked out the town clock (he is responsible for the Town Hall also) and rain flooded their basement.  In his hurry to be in several places at once, and having been up half the night with all this, he forgot he had the only key to the light switches.  We therefore had a dark museum, not fire alarms, and a kids event to run.  This had to be cancelled at the computers and photocopier all failed also. 

I wandered about switching on anything that worked but the young lass was afraid to move through the darkened museum to open some of the locked doors, until the torch on her iphone was used to guide her as she ran through! Just as well we got it all going as by eleven we were busy for a while.  How nice to meet interesting people and kids who don't wish to go home as they enjoy what they are finding.  

Tonight I realised my ansafone was also dead because of the storm.  I should have closed down the laptop during it as lightning landing nearby once killed the old modem in my first PC and led to me being ripped of in my ignorance of such things.  

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Sodden Saturday

Thunder, lightning, rain, it's summertime and the living is easy.

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