Thunderstorms.

The day started bright and sunny so once I had done my housework I took myself off for a walk up the hill. I'm going to try and get up the hill every day if possible because last night I looked at my legs and saw a couple of bumps which look suspiciously like the start of varicose veins. My mother always told me not to cross my legs so I'm going to have to break that habit when I'm sitting at the pc and a bit more hill walking should help as well. Up till now I've been happy with my legs as I'm fortunate in having fair almost invisible hair and not having the genes for cellulite. 

It's a lovely walk up the hill and at the top I was rewarded with the song of a skylark overhead. 

At last the  peas are making an appearance. I was working in the afternoon but I had enough time to clear the moss from the slabs at the side of the conservatory. The moss was so thick that I scraped it off with the hoe before tackling the stubborn bits with the wire brush. I was on the last slab when the rain stared to fall gently. When I got to school there were some black clouds overhead so I had a chat with my class about not screaming if they heard some thunder. There was some thunder but we were in the main building doing pe so the children didn't take any notice. The rain was pouring down just as we were about to walk across the playground back to the classroom so I sat the children down and we made up a story until the rain eased off a bit. After school I went into town to take some antique plates to the charity shop, we'll never use them so they might as well get some money for cancer research instead. The rain held off until I got back to the car then within minutes it was hammering down. When I turned off the main road the rain was so heavy that I could hardly see even with the wipers going at double speed. This was no more than an inconvenience until I got home to find that the water flowing down the road was going over the dam and was washing away our drive. 

This was the state of the drive after I had stopped the flow by putting more wood on the dam and creating a second dam on the other side of the road. I did all that as the thunderstorm was crashing away right overhead. I didn't see the lightning as I frantically worked to reinforce the dam but I did think that I might be putting myself at risk especially as I was holding a metal shovel. I just hoped that any lightning would hit the trees instaed. Some of the ruts in the drive were a good 6" deep. I shoveled 13 (half) barrow loads of gravel and stones from the yard back up the drive. It's funny how there is never enough to fill all the ruts. After that I didn't think I needed to do my evening exercises. And then the sun came out again.