Monsoon

Sometimes, methinks, God works in mysterious ways... I woke up before the crack of dawn yesterday morning, unfathomably early and wide awake. Nothing for it but to get up. I could tell I wasn't going to fall back asleep and I didn't want to start fretting over some imagined impending disaster or flagellating myself over some undone chore that I wouldn't even give brain-space to during the day (that box of videotapes cluttering up the study and I haven't a VHS player to play them on now so should I just throw them away or should I keep them or should I spend ages and a small fortune to get them transferred to DVD so I can fret over the same problem again when I no longer have a DVD player...)  I'm sure you know the kind of thing that assails in the wee small hours..

So I got up - and then there wasn't much else to do but go to work. Luckily I work for the Civilised Service, who have a flexitime system. So I arrived at work a good hour earlier than I usually do, to the surprise of those of my colleagues who are habitual larks.  That meant though (oh joy, on a Friday too) that I could also theoretically go home a good hour earlier than I usually do. In the end I stayed to finish something, but still set off to walk home maybe 30 minutes before I would have done.  And boy, was the sky black... It started thundering and lightning. Then the raindrops started to fall, fat and very, very wet but widely spaced in that strange way that summer storms often have. I put my key in the door just as it started to hammer down - and I mean hammer. Pelting down like stair-rods, as they say round here. Watching the street turn to river, from the safety of an upstairs window, I gloried in the power of the storm - and was eternally grateful for my early morning wake-up that saved me from a soaking.