Thunderbolts and lightning, very very ...not frightening but very wet!

We had a HUGE thunderstorm earlier this morning here, with torrential rain. I realised something was up when at 9.30 am it got darker and darker and I had to turn on the electric overhead light to see.

The came the thunder - huge, rolling, blasts of thunder. Then came some lightning and THEN came the rain. Lots of rain. Torrents of rain. Buckets full of the wet stuff.

After watching the spectacle for a bit from the safety of the house, we realised that the front drive was rapidly flooding. It is not meant to do that. There is a drainage channel up the verge on the road side which takes away any water shed by the road in extreme rainfall. But it was obviously blocked up. This happens over the course of time as cars and lorries drive over the verge and fill in the channel with mud.

So Compostman wet suited up and went out to clear the ditch, and I did likewise and went to check on other bits around the house and garage. 

I found that, oh dear, the polytunnel was flooded  :-(  with a small stream flowing through the door and out the back. So I got some bags of growing medium form the store pile around the corner at the back of the garage and carried them one by oneto use as sandbags in front of the polytunnel door. This diverted the flow of water.

  
Then Compostman came along and got busy with a spade digging an emergency drainage channels, to take away the surplus water into the drainage ditch at the bottom of the hedge

This is the polytunnel after the worst of the water had subsided. Good job I grow in large pots in the polytunnel - if I grew in the ground it would have all washed away, such was the flowthrough of water!

 All of the garden was absolutely sodden, like this.

  
Cassi Cat, as always, came out to supervise us while we dug and heaved stuff about. She does not seem to mind getting wet at all. Must be the Burmese blood!

All the water has all sunk away into the ground, now and the sun is shining. Strange weather or what?