What a storm!

We usually sleep with one bedroom window open just a little.  With the recent hot weather we've been having, we have had the window under our front verandah wide open and often the window on the side of the house open too.  Last night when we went to bed Mick closed the side window saying it looked like we'd be getting some rain.  With no verandah on the side, that window is exposed to the elements.  The front window is well protected from the rain by the low verandah and in all the time we've lived here we have never had rain touch the glass.


I woke to the feeling of water spraying on my feet and thought I was dreaming.  After a minute I realized my feet really were damp and I thought the roof was leaking.  There was a fierce thunder storm with a constant rumble of thunder and lightening that flashed without pause. The power was off and by then Mick had woken to my stumbling around trying to turn on lights that weren't working.  The carpet between the front window and the end of the bed was quite wet.  The wind was blowing so hard it was literally blowing the rain under the verandah and into the bedroom.  It's never happened in 12 years.

We met in the laundry - Mick trying to find a torch and me dragging out the stack of old towels.  When we shone the torch at the front door there was water being forced under it and the trickle was growing and spreading across the floor boards.  I bundled towels across the bottom of the door.  With the bedroom window firmly shut we lay towels across the carpet to soak up the worst of it.  Back in bed I thought perhaps I should check the back door but being on the opposite side of the house it was unlikely that the rain would come in that way too.

There has been the odd occasion where the wind has blown so hard that it's forced the rain up the back verandah and it's poured down the back door and under it.  A weather strip at the bottom of the door has made it much less likely but it has been known to happen.  There was water running under the back door!  How could the wind blow so hard from both the North and the South.  Couldn't it make up it's mind?!  More towels across the bottom of the back door.

This morning the power is back on and there's no wind, thunder or lightening - just a good constant rain.  It's great to have a decent amount of rain.  No garden watering this week then.