Further ramblings of a self-made pauper

That was spectacular, but very brief; visibility is still low, but the sky is brightening up again.

It looks as though Departmental Sports Day is going to be called off. We have just had an email suggesting that people may wish to avoid disappointment by not making the trip out to Chiswick where events will almost certainly have been cancelled. I wonder what Numpty drafted that email (it is a general, unsigned one from the information section); most people will avoid disappointment by going down the pub and boasting about what they would have done had the weather permitted.

Well today could be fun. The Met Office have issued a severe weather alert for London and the South East of England and it seems that we should brace ourselves for persistent thunder and lightning accompanying two months’ worth of rainfall in one day. Various other parts of the country have had it, now it’s our turn.

Two months’ rainfall sounds a lot and the sky is appropriately dull and grey with mist and rain squalls blowing around the place. It is windy and cool but still uncomfortably humid. Pressure must be quite low, too. I have that behind-the-eyes-not-quite-headache feeling. Of course, recent summers in London have been hot and dry, so I assume that we are expecting two months of the seasonal average as two months’ worth of the past two or three summers’ rainfall wouldn’t inconvenience a beetle much less the city.

Part of me is looking forward to the sight of canoes on the streets of London, but moist of me wants to be at home up on the hill when it happens, keeping a – you should excuse the pun – weather eye out for the skylight above the stair well, which leaks at the best of times.

Ah. A brief flash of lightning; it may be starting.

There is a thunder storm nearby. It's raining outside, sometimes heavy, sometimes not, and in the distance there are rumbles of thunder sadly becoming quieter and less frequent.

I fear that unless the storm returns and we have the full electrical extravaganza, this humidity will simply get worse, and less bearable. If it's like this out here in Whetstone, some 12 miles from the centre of London, God only knows what it will be like in town tomorrow. Humidity is one thing; humidity in a major city quite another. There is nothing quite like the intermix of traffic pollution, heat, damp, stagnant air and sunlight reflected back from steel, glass and concrete.

I shall sleep with the fan on again tonight. The direction of the rain keeps changing, so I can't leave the bedroom windows open wide as I'd like. The smell of damp curtains and rain-splashed carpet is not the most welcome of things to wake up to. Of course, if the storm was directly overhead, the rain would be falling vertically, and I should be able to bask in the vague cross current of air between the rooms without fear of the dampness entering.

Oh well, to bed, I guess.

I believe Monday is Labor Day in the US. Enjoy your day off. I am envious. But then I only have a week to go before I'm on holiday for a whole six days (excluding weekends!), so I guess I can fend off the green-eyed beastie until then.

I clearly slept more deeply than I thought last night: the promised rain arrived during the night, and judging by the pools of water on the window sills, it fair hammered down.

Anyway, that's mopped up, and the windows are closed. Yet it's still tolerably cool. Hurrah! More to the point, I can sit here at the pooter typing without having to angle the monitor against the glare of the morning sun. There ain't none, for the first time in weeks! The sky is positively leaden.

Ah, bliss.

This was actually forecast, and for once they were right! And it's just started raining again (and thundering).

Today (strictly, in view of the time, yesterday) has been a good day; it would have been better if the thunder storm could have held off a further half hour so that we could have had a result in the Twenty-20 cricket match at the Oval between Surrey and Middlesex. Nonetheless, we got thirty of the forty overs, and saw enough of this stripped down version of cricket for me to be convinced that it is a winner. And the grass roots game in England definitely needs something to pull it out of the doldrums, Test Matches (International, country v country series, for my non Commonwealth, or North American friends)continue to be well attended, and there are signs that the one day game is reasonably supported at that level, too. But county games are notoriously under attended, and resources are a real problem. The Twenty-20 series' could be the game's saviour.

It's even fast paced enough, and generates enough stats to keep even an American interested; far better than the incomprehensible baseball (or big-boys' rounders, for my Commonwealth and UK friends).

The thunderstorm may have brought this all to an early end, but it did clear the air and a great deal of the smog that has been hanging around London these past weeks. Unfortunately, it also demonstrated the folly of leaving windows wide open in an attempt to get air circulating around the Athenaeum Club. I have spent a good deal of time this evening mopping up in my computer room up here in the Tower. I had a veritable lake on the table; happily there was nothing there to be damaged. There could easily have been had I left art equipment out.

Oh well, it's 2.09 am. I really should sign off and go to bed.