Weird Weather.

Phew, talk about dramatic weather last night. Driving to choir yesterday evening it was already dark but the car headlights showed my way covered in leaves and the occasional small branch. I thought nothing of it as I left after choir but as I turned back westwards off the main road the whole sky in front of me was lit up again and again. This was happeneing every few seconds but without any rain or thunder. As somebody said on FB it was like War of the Worlds. (This video I found shows it but it is on Twitter.) It was quite unnerving. The drive is normally about 10 minutes but although I wanted to get home as quickly as possible I reduced my speed in case I had to react to branches or even trees being blown down onto the road. When I got home, because there wasn't any thunder Peter hadn't even noticed the storm which must have been way out over the Irish Sea. We stood outside and watched the storm for a time and it was truly phenomenal. There'd be a flash lighting up the sky sometimes with lightning shooting down below the clouds to the sea then immediately another flash slightly to the south, a wait of three seconds and then the whole sequence repeated. This carried on to the west of us for well over an hour gradually moving north-east until another hour or so later it had moved inland beyond Snowdonia and then out of sight.

Today began grey and once again warm. I guess it's the warmth that is putting energy into the sea which then gets converted into thunderstorms. (That may not be quite the scientific explanation.)

After a fairly optimistic start when I washed yesterday's work trousers which were mucky from all that kneeling on soggy woodchip and then put a second load in the machine. But all to no avail when we had what could only be described as a prolonged cloudburst.

The rain also put paid to my plans to put up the terrace guttering. I got the short piece at the side attached in the morning but this was the scene that greeted me after our Welsh lesson had finished. Luckily it was only a hammer and screwdriver left outside as I'd brought eveything else back in just in case of rain. When the downpour eventually stopped I tried carrying on but I needed Peter's help to hold one end of the long piece so that I could mark where bracket at the other end should go. Unfortunately Peter was in the middle of doing some admin so came out reluctantly. Not a good idea as somehow my mark ended up 6" from where it should have been. Working alone I took the bracket off and put up another hopefully in the right place. I stopped at that point and shan't carry on until Peter is free to help as it's just not a one-person job.

The last thing I did was climb up into the loft to carry down the dehumidifier to help dry all the wet washing now hanging up in the utility room.

It was a good singing session last night. Missing the repertoire of my old choir I'd been asking our teacher if they ever sang any of the same songs and struck lucky with Shona Malanga (a slightly faster version but this arrangement) which we sang last night. It was new to most of the group so I switched back to the altos and had great fun as it's the sort of song you can really belt out. Everybody enjoyed it which was good too. I'm hoping that at some point we will sing/learn Hallelujah (not the Loenard Cohen song but the word sung in four parts to Pachelbels Canon. That was a favourite with everyone in the old choir.