What a storm!

What a storm we had yesterday afternoon!   It only lasted an hour but so much rain came down.  The electricity had been cutting on and off since about 11am,  and the clouds were gathering,  not so many of the big shiny thunder clouds but just generally murky looking things all around,  both north and south of us.

At 2.30 we were outside in the sun talking to our up the hill neighbours about life,  other neighbours and things happening locally,  soon after we came in the thunder started to rumble and the first spots of rain came.  Then there was lightning,  thunder, really heavy rain,  haven't seen anything like it for years.  It poured off the roof in places in never comes off,  I think the sheer volume made that happen,  it couldn't get down the gulleys.  It filled the garden,  it filled the land round the pool  - yes,  again - and washed dirt and grit in - yes, again.

We were sitting on the terrace during the storm watching the lightning, I was sewing as well and when the thunder cracked overhead it really made me jump!  John was more prepared as he saw the lightning and was ready for it.  And so it went on,  Pip for some reason hadn't made it indoors to her hiding place under the bed,  I didn't realise for a while,  went indoors to check on her,  looked everywhere by torchlight but couldn't find her,  put on a raincoat and went paddling in my flipflops - still in shorts and a t-shirt as it wasn't cold - and found her trembling under the caravan.  She wouldn't come out so I had to leave her there. 

And then the hail started.  Huge hail stones bouncing everywhere,  even in onto the terrace and up onto the table and the doorstep.  Pip appeared then,  probably too  frightened to stay outside on her own.  All the time the thunder cracked and rumbled overhead,  to the north and south,  the lightning flashed all around all the time.  Quite amazing to watch.

But even when the storm finished the electric didn't come back on.  We weren't really surprised,  thought something had probably exploded somewhere, but our neighbours rang to say there was electric in Yátor and they were phoning Antonio to let him know we didn't have any here.  There is a pylon on Era Alta with a transformer,  then another one at the last pylon about 100 metres below us,  after that it goes underground through Montenegro.  About 8pm, maybe a bit later,  Antonio and Rosendo - he was the man in charge of the pylons and cabling when our supply was installed - came up, we heard them stop at the transformer,  then they drove past us but a bit later came back to see if we had electric now.  All the circuit breakers had tripped and the light in the box that shows if we have power in the house was not illuminated.  Even when John reset the breakers,  that didn't light up.  And then we saw why.  It had exploded,  was in bits at the bottom of the box,  there must have been an enormous power surge for that to happen - or so my technical advisor tells me!

So today has been a bit of a clear-up day.  The hump on the pista which catches surface water and channels it into the acequia had also caught mud and stones and was no longer a hump.  That needed redigging.  The rainwater had overflowed the hump and gathered speed on it's way past our gate,  most of it missed the channel down the side of the road that we keep clear for it,  and made some deep gulleys on the bend below us.  We have made a gulley round the edge of the pool  so water will now hopefully run off into the flowerbeds and not muddy the water again.  John reckons there could be a hippo in there and we wouldn't know it's so bad.  Last time it took 10 days and 2 cleans before it was sparkling so I think I've had my last swim of the year, in 10 days time it might be too cool.