As promised in my piece last time, here is an update on the heatwave / drought / flash flood situation. There was decent rain last night for the first time in many weeks and we stood at the front door and marvelled at the sight of water running down the street, and soaked up the smells suddenly released from the parched ground.
Today however it got serious. A major front moved north from France bringing lightning and, in parts of the UK, torrential rain that caused flooding. Here, in beautiful Ruislip, all was quiet until mid afternoon, despite an ominous build up of black cloud, and Mrs C and I even dared to pop out to a furniture warehouse. No sooner inside than a fierce drumming on the roof heralded the arrival of the storm. Here is how it was at the start:
That red dot is us. The storm moved over our heads and then stayed there for about three hours, giving us some 20mm of rain. We had driven down a fairly placid A40 on the outward journey but coming back everything was at a near-standstill with pools of water at the side of the road and huge gouts of spray from the trucks. HS2 roadworks at Ruislip Gardens gave us another ten minutes of gridlock.
I'm not complaining. We have desperately needed it. Some of our normally green and vibrant plants are bleached almost white, and the "lawn" at the front of our house looks like a desert scrubland. Let us see if the cacti bloom.
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