[West Ender]

Rain-storm? Oh boy!

I was invited to an early evening party, 2 miles away. I set off at 5.15. At 5.18 the heavens opened and I could barely see to drive. I arrived outside my friends' drive, which is in a hollow, and I couldn't get out of the car as it was raining so hard and thundering and lightning like mad. The water was soon nearly up to the top of my car's wheels and the rain was showing no sign of stopping so I thought I'd go home until it stopped, rather than sit there for God knew how long. The drive back was a nightmare, everywhere was flooded, and my own road, which is a slight hill, looked like a river. I had to sit on my own drive for nearly 10 minutes as I would have been soaked just getting into the house. When I did get in, my patio was under about 5" of water and I had a moat round my kitchen door. I eventually got to the party at 6.45, by which time the sun was out again and everywhere was drying out.

I've seen rain like that in Malta, once, but I can't ever remember seeing it in this country before, not to the extent of flooding all the roads in less than 10 minutes. As I'm about 40 miles from Accrington it looks like the storm covered a big area.