It's been warm and summery here for the last two or three days. Today, it got a bit tropical, and this evening a thunderstorm arrived during the Emilia Show.
I don't like lightning. People die every year from electrical accidents with toasters and things, whilst the energy in one bolt from the blue could keep 10 houses powered for a year. Besides which, I don't want to get hit by something that's 50,000 degrees Farenheit. That might hurt.
Thunderstorms are rare here, and they are the only time that I wish I wasn't living in a top floor flat. They've just wired all the flats for satellite TV, and the dish is outside my lounge window, with a thick cable running through my attic. So if it hits that I'll probably end up with my whole ceiling ablaze.
When I was a child, I remember that we used to count the time between the lightning flash and the thunder. People used to say that a second was a mile, but then at school we learned that the speed of sound was not a mile a second, but about a fifth of that, and suddenly I didn't feel so safe.
So I've given up counting. You know when it's overhead when there are no seconds between the flash and the very loud and violent crash. I wandered into the stairwell and stood there when that happened, then decided that it would be embarrassing if anyone saw me hiding and went back in.
There's not really anywhere to hide, anyway. These days everything is wired for electricity, so the lightening can get you wherever you are. People have been fried in indoor swimming pools, apparently, and I read a while back about someone in this country who was struck whilst doing the dishes in his kitchen. The lightening hit a pipe, channelling the deadly charge to his sink. He survived because he was wearing those ridiculous yellow rubber gloves. I bet his wife felt guilty about nagging him to do the washing up during a storm.
Oh well, in the time it's taken me to type this, sort out a picture, and so on, the thunder has gone, and I have cheated death for the time being. Maybe one day the scientists will find a way to harness all that electricity. Then this blog really will be lightning powered.
21 comments:
my gawd, what a shocking post!
sorry, had to
And your lightning reactions have got you first strike.
I never get to be first! ;o)
I wasn't too afraid of the lightning but now, THANKS TO YOU, I am!
Oh well, I wanted to give on everything that involved water anyway. No more showers for me! The dishes? Disposables!
Bee:
Apparently only one person in 10 who gets struck is killed.
You only have to give up washing during a storm...
I will make it my mission in life from now on to invent something to use all that energy.
Dan:
Excellent. Previous attempts have been by mad scientists such as Frankenstein, to do things like bring monsters to life.
I'm sure you can come up with something better than that.
And you weren't nervous about it coming to get you through the internets? Or were you blogging with rubber gloves on?
I should get some of those yellow gloves for the dishes. Although we have a dishwasher so I rarely ever have to wash dishes by hand. Still wouldn't hurt to have them around.
My father used to love storms. He would go out and sit on our front porch and watch the lightning. I prefer to not watch and only listen from a further distance.
Anndi, Brian always surfs the net with rubber gloves on. Just one of his adorable quirks
I use to be rather 'meh' about lightening, but last night, during a rather intense rain storm, my husband stepped outside to get something from the car just as a bolt of lightening struck, and he came running inside, hair standing up on end, so now I'm all about respecting the lightening. Even if it was kind of funny to see his hair standing up.
Anndi:
Whilst it might have been safer to wear protective clothing, a face mask and thick insulating gloves, it makes it really hard to type.
Of course I was taking a huge risk getting this blog post written in dangerous conditions, but that's just one example of my dedication and fearless determination not to let my adoring public down...
FADKOG:
You've just reminded me that I need a hair cut - it's starting to look like that even when there isn't a storm...
Tracy:
I've never liked gloves.
When Helena was younger and I was still married, she used to get frightened during storms, and we'd go and sit in the conservatory with the doors open, and I'd read her stories. The cool air was lovely.
We have had ridiculous amounts of thunderstorms recently. We had 4 in one week about a month back. I live in the penthouse of my building, which is a massive concrete thing, so I actually enjoy it from time to time. I go out on my concrete balconey and just watch the show. Now if it was an iron balconey or something, that may be a different story.
I don't dig thunder and lightning. But, it gets me out of washing the car or doing the dishes everytime.
Sully:
I think I'd feel safer in a bigger building.
Catscratch:
I don't understand why they can't make a special formula shampoo that you can pour on the car before it rains, and let nature do the cleaning.
I've been known to wash dishes during thunderstorms - the fear of a million volt charge is less than my dislike of dirty dishes by my sink ;-)
Tracy
We all know you make your son do the dishes!
You posted that picture like 2,000 times.
Brian
Not really, I'm gonna try to make a Frankenstine horse.
Dan:
Remember your cruelty to horses post. You have to create a female one as well.
If you read the original Mary Shelley book (actually I wouldn't recommend it, it's boring), the main reason that Frankenstein's monster went on a mad killing rampage was that there was no female monster to satisfy his needs...
I read that book Brian and it wasn't boring until the very end when he's searching all over for his creator. and it was lack of love and fitting in that drove him mad not just lack of a female. remember how he loved that little family?
Jean Knee:
It's only a short book, but it took me ages to finish - I'd agree with you that it's the last part that's the dullest. It's all very sad.
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