Spiders dancing 28 June 2011 9.15pm.
Loud, very loud, claps of thunder almost overhead and bright flashes of lightning. Momentarily quite alarming. I think how apt the phrase is…‘like lightning out of a summer sky’. This came quite suddenly; it has been a beautiful couple of days, hot and sunny; this morning it’s still warm and bright. But ominous grey clouds bank up and thunder rumbles around.
I’m out shopping when the storm comes; the rain is fierce, noisy, vertical. People laugh as they shelter in doorways and chatter excitedly, shaking droplets from their umbrellas. I look out into the street to see the rain splashing down so hard it jumps up again, and remember my tiny daughter’s poetic words, during a cloudburst, when she was very young. ‘Come and look, Mummy. It’s spiders dancing’. We gazed out of the kitchen window together into the small patio and watched, as indeed the ‘rain spiders’ danced on the paving stones.
This afternoon after the sudden downpour, the sunlight is brilliant, and as I drive past on my way home, the tarmac paths in the Park are glistening black. Steam is rising from them and the grass is unbelievably green. I want to be there.
‘Dog’ welcomes me back; we’ll go for a walk after I’ve put the food shopping away. When I’m ready and she’s got her collar and lead on, the storm returns almost immediately so we have to sit and wait. She looks at me questioningly at a couple of very loud thunderclaps; but I do not react and she settles again.
We go down to the Park in the car in case we have to shelter quickly; lots of boisterous dogs are there, enjoying their freedom in the fresh air; and the owners talk ‘weather talk’ to each other and shake their heads….. ‘what a summer we’re having’.
This evening I pick the last of the redcurrants before the rain spoils them. They are the most beautiful colour.
SummerStarfield 