We have had some drama with the weather recently
The heat wave started to break rather dramatically one morning a few minutes after 10 when the bedside radio suddenly went dark & silent. Just as I was deciding that someone working on a nearby loft conversion had somehow cut through a cable, the radio came back to life, accompanied by a clap of thunder. Miraculously, all its settings were intact
I hadn’t noticed the lightning flash but I noticed the next one, a few minutes later – almost simultaneously accompanied by a loud crack of doom, indicating the storm was now directly overhead, & heavy rain. The sky was black outside the window
Rather nervously I went down to the kitchen – the sky was already brightening to the west. There was however a strange smell, a bit metallic – a century’s worth of dust shaken up in the roof space I decided
About 40 minutes after the storm began, rolling thunder rumbled round & round the hills like an aircraft doing a valedictory roll
The rest of the day was less dramatic, even sunny in the afternoon, but noticeably fresher
Tuesday saw torrential bursts of rain – localised & quite short-lived, what the Met Office call showers. I managed to miss most of them, being safely on the bus or inside when they passed by
I was woken about 4am on Wednesday by sounds I have previously heard only in the tropics – rain sheeting on to the roof, enough to make it sound as if it were covered with corrugated iron rather than slates
That too soon passed but the early morning news on local radio spoke – alarmingly – of land slips affecting both the railway line & the road. Thankfully later travel bulletins did not mention any disruption to buses or trains & by the time I ventured out at midday everything seemed pretty normal
The stream was in full spate however, all the culverts spewing & the water level high enough to make you calculate how much further it could rise before starting to breach the banks. But the recently cleared drains had done their job: there was no lake on the bridge, just lots of gravel on the road surface, resting after its roll down the hill. The air was notably cool, the skies still heavy & grey, rain ever-threatening, but my umbrella & rain jacket never needed to come out of my bag
I glanced up as I was coming home shortly after 7. The sky above the hill top was deep blue grey black, but a shaft of light from the setting sun (hidden by the row of houses on the right) turned the transmitter dramatically silver – you could even make out the shapes of all the dishes it has sprouted near its base
Breathtaking
The view was interrupted by houses until I reached the top of the lane, by which time the shaft of light had gone, to be replaced by the kind of dusk which turns the grass a vivid emerald & the transmitter just a black finger pointing skywards
I stopped on the bridge to inspect the stream – the water still rushing & brown, but only trickling out of the culverts, the level low enough to expose the quite large mud bank which is developing there & is even getting covered with vegetation
As my eyes adjusted I noticed the ducks
At least a dozen, including ducklings, mostly just settled down & at rest
They often come up this far from the river – some of the ducklings even get born here
But they were definitely not there in the morning – the bank was covered with rushing water. It is possible to imagine the adults managing to paddle up against the flow – or did they fly? Even the ducklings?
When I finish this post I will have to see if Google can find me an explanation
