Downpour!

Yesterday Falmouth was washed by a cloudburst of epic proportions, and I was standing in it, or, more accurately, walking into town, around town, and home again in it. Needless to say it stopped fairly promptly after I arrived back indoors.

Having been hit by a sheet of rain with the ability to soak knicker-deep in under a minute, I dispensed with the clammy shower-proof (hah!) mac and strode up and down the main street like a belligerent version of Miss Wet-vest August 2005. Amazing how people don't crowd you in shops when you're shedding water like a labrador that's just climbed out of a lake.

It seemed like everything I wanted to get was papery and therefore needing to be wrapped in layers of bags, rendering useless the one bag I'd brought along, now harbouring the soggy not-waterproof. WH Smith, usually noted for giving you a bag big enough to use as a tent when buying something the size of a matchbox, this time typically provided a bag that left my paper and Radio Times sticking out of the top. Thanks a bunch.

The high point of the trip was standing at a cash point while seemingly the entire run-off from Lloyds' roof poured directly down my neck (I really needed that pasty money by then).

Squelching home thinking that I couldn't get much wetter, was proved wrong when I reached the stream at the lowest point on the path. What had been fine less than an hour before was now swirling round the driveways to the side, abetted by a burst pipe gushing out of the water treatment works (ewww)*. It was a choice between walking all the way back up the hill and a very long way round, or wading through murky ankle deep water.

I waded. My pasty was getting cold.


* A study should be done on whether writing a blog improves your level of cheerfulness in the face of adversity. My first thought may have been 'oh crap', but my second was 'hey, this'll make a good bit'.