Thuderstorms

A big surprise for us has been the frequency of dramatic thunderstorms, usually in the late afternoons or early evenings. Sometimes you just see and hear them but there is little or no rain. Other times there is a deluge that seems to go on forever and you hear the fire engines hurrying to what we assume are problematic flash floods. The brightness and number of flashes of lightning are breathtaking and quite scary. The following thunderclaps are frightening. I am not one of those people who enjoy watching this particular spectacle of nature. When Catherine and I were returning from an evening walk, lightning struck the ground in a field we were walking past. Roger and Chris enjoy sitting at the back of their boat watching the show, and the other night lightning struck de Laak, the boat we had been moored next to up until we left for Dijon. The clap of thunder was deafening and there were flames, it was thought the canopy was on fire. Instead Brian’s carbon fibre fishing rod was hit and now the top part of it is a shrivelled mess. The wiring in the boat was damaged and power to the boat wiped out. All very upsetting and frightening. Apparently carbon fibre fishing rods are sold with a warning label on them saying they mustn’t be used during a thunderstorm. Brian had left his in a rod holder when he had finished using it and it stuck up above the boat.

This evening we were invited for drinks onto Empress, a particularly lovely barge owned by Americans Stanley and Betsy, Wolfgang from Germany was there too. The thunderstorm arrived in great haste and with much fanfare of thunder and lightning. We had to stop talking, we couldn’t hear what each other was saying. The rain was torrential and went on for ages. Really I was glad to have some company and the opportunity to be distracted from this, for me, menacing show of power.

Jeanette