Dreadful Weather

The weather overnight was truly vile.  We had such a heavy and violent storm which threw everything at us, rain, hail, snow, high winds and a power cut which started at around 3am and continued until around 8am with a little blip around lunchtime when I guess everyone was turning on their cookers for something nice and warm to eat.

We had been up in the middle of the night turning things off so that they would not be affected by a lightning strike because last time we lost one of our TV boxes so they, the TVs, charging mobile phones, the laptops and tablets, air conditioning, pumps and router to name just a few were all switched off.  We needed something left on so that we knew when and if power was restored!

One of the flashes of lightning and claps of thunder was so severe I remember waking up and shouting "Oh Shit!!!" at the top of my voice.  We know that something tripped our lights but we haven't as yet found out what so it cannot be anything we use regularly.  In fact we don't think anything was affected permanently this time.  We did realise early on that the Photovoltaic panels had tripped - this is not unusual we just tend to forget to check and then when that happens any electricity we generate does not get fed back to the grid so this is something we try and remember to do - the only trouble is this tends to happen on days when the weather conditions mean we would not be generating much if anything so the monitoring system doesn't always indicate that nothing is happening and John has to go out and up a ladder to check the trip - this he did this morning in the cold and wet but was glad he had made the effort because the trip had gone.

It was a day when the best thing to do was stay indoors but sadly it was the third Tuesday in a row Di and I were supposed to be going out to the garden centre and the third one we had decided to postpone.  Sensible really but a shame as it will mean we have failed throughout the whole of September to have that coffee together.

We actually had to go out in the afternoon as I had arranged to buy some wool and we had planned to get in our weekly shop because after I had made some soup for lunch there was nothing left in our veg box or in the fridge!  When we set off it was dry and we stopped in the village to check the post - amazingly we actually got our water bill in the post this time so I have no excuse not to get it paid!  This was a brief respite in the storm which was rolling around the island.  We made it down to Polis and got the wool and got the shopping.  Paps was virtually empty.  When I went to get a pork tenderloin I was faced with a wall of 5 butchers wanting to serve me!!!  We fair skipped around and got everything we wanted and emerged to the first few big plops of rain which was the start of a massive downpour.  

I wanted to collect my prescription and hopefully a box of covid testing kits from the pharmacy.  I have started to use the new one which is located in front of where the Pencil Box used to be.  She was very  at Christmas and I can pull up there without having to go right into Polis.  Socrates is a great pharmacy but the parking there right on the corner is an accident waiting to happen!!!  Anyway the good news was that my regular prescriptions were ready for collection and even better the anti-histiminie which I had bought full price is available on GESY for 1 euro and Dr Christoforou had added it for me and 'as a regular' I could have a free box of the testing kits.

Whilst I was in the Pharmacy the weather deteriorated to the point where the chemist actually offered to escort me out to the car with her umbrella!!!  There was rain water pouring down the streets and the roads were awash.  We took it carefully coming home as there are pockets where the flood water was a lot deeper than you would have realised.

The run in from the car down the path to the house got us soaked in seconds.  I had actually dug out my winter coat for the expedition and was glad I had because (a) it kept me warm, dry and toasty and (b) I can still fit into it even though I think my recent lack of exercise, diet and medication have made me put on weight.