Flashy

WE were treated to a spectacular thunderstorm last night here in the Glasgow area. Of course, treated is only valid if you actually enjoy them, otherwise I suppose we were subjected to one.

I was visiting my parents after work yesterday, and just as I was about to leave there and head home (around 6.30pm), I saw the first flash of lightning and heard a distant rumble of thunder. As I drove home, I could see in my rear-view mirror the flashes of lightning away in the distance behind me, with the sky lighting up almost constantly.

I live around 40 miles away from my parents, so when I got home, it was still relatively calm. In fact, I went out and dug up some weeds from my front path that I had put weedkiller on last Sunday, but it was very warm, and I could see the sky getting darker and darker, so knew that the storm wasn’t very far away.

Probably around 8pm, I could hear the thunder in the distance, and I went out the back to see if I could see any lightning. I’m glad I went out, because I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it before in my life. It was amazing to watch, and because it was still a couple of kilometres away (the old Physics equations coming in handy last night) I was able to stand and watch it for about 20 minutes until it got close enough that I had to go indoors to get out of the torrential rain.

The lightning was constant. Flash after flash, without any pause; each accompanied by a rumble of thunder - the more violent flashes sending out massive cracks of thunder. This went on for well over an hour, with the rain absolutely hammering down.

It eventually passed, although there were still flashes of lightning and thunder claps well into the night, but just not as constant as it was earlier on.

Today, the air has been cleared by the storm, and it’s a gorgeous day. Very warm, very sunny (not a cloud to be seen), hardly any breeze, and it’s my day off as well! Sometimes, life’s quite good, innit? Just sometimes.