Weather not so good

 

I am sorry to say that the weather forecasters got it right.  I was woken unceremoniously at around 3.00am by a rather impressive lightning display and cacophony of thunder - a couple of claps actually made me jump.  The cats were not impressed - and sought refuge on our bed.  We had been sensible enough to take a towel to bed which was constantly in use and the poor little buggers were less than happy about having to go out in monsoon conditions for the loo.

Mum was due up today.  I text and warned her that if it did not improve I was advising her not to drive.  She had experienced similar weather conditions so wasn't surprised - we decided to keep an eye on how the weather progressed.  At 11.00am I told her that it was getting brighter but she needed to be very careful.  Storms like this often bring a lot of debris down onto the roads.  

We are not sure whether the house suffered a hit by lightning but the immersion timer switch wouldn't work - we thought we would need to heat some water for a shower and washing up.  We found that the TV in the conservatory wouldn't work - I had unplugged it and the TV box because we have lost a TV Box in a storm previously.

I think I must have anticipated it being a grey cool and quite miserable day when I decided to do lamb shanks cooked in prunes and red wine for lunch.  This is not my photograph - I forgot to take one - we had it with mustard mash and some mange-tout and baby carrots and it was absolutely delicious and warming.  I think we all appreciated something hearty to eat today.  Absolutely no chance of being outside today!!!  We were somewhat grateful that we had started to pack things in the garden away yesterday although we still had the sails up which were absolutely soaking and if we did had to nip out to the freezer they greeted us with a shower as the rain fell through.

We did have a little sunshine in the afternoon - enough to raise the temperature in the conservatory to 29 degrees albeit briefly but that made it pleasant to sit there after lunch.  Even though it had been brighter than we anticipated Mum agreed that it would be sensible to leave earlier because as the afternoon wore on it got greyer and it looked like it would be dark unusually early.  I was glad when she contacted me to say she was home safe and sound.  I could relax then so I got round to waxing some of the wooden items in the house with the beeswax polish that my neighbour Gail had made.  It certainly brought my little desk tidy box back to life.  I love this box it is one of the few reminders I have from working at Porter Dodson Solicitors - it belonged to my lovely friend Brenda (HR) who passed it on to her replacement Deborah when she retired and Deborah said she always thought it should have gone to me so she gave it to me when I retired.

We had our neighbours Jan and Derek in this evening for a warm - they have found their house to be quite chilly the last couple of evenings!