Morning storm

 

I awoke into a damp grey dawn. The windows were dim and vague with fog, and rain fell in big wet drops on the roof, drumming a great noise of falling water. Climbing out of bed, I padded over to one of the windows for a better look. The rain was bucketing down and, as I watched it, a heavy sense of disappointment pressed vice-like on my thoughts. You see, David and I had arranged for our friends to come over for his birthday-lunch later that day and, if the summer-storm continued, we’d need to move the party inside. While that was possible, if we moved all our furniture back against the walls, it would be cramped and less comfortable inside our tiny cottage. So, I crossed my fingers the storm would soon pass.

Watching the beach, situated at the foot of a small hill at the far-end of our back garden, I noticed the drenched pepper-brown sand was littered with black tangles of seaweed and shrouded under grey fog and battering sheets of rain. The trees heaved wildly up and down the coast and the dull green ocean was angry with white foam. From over the horizon, which merged with the sky in a slate-grey haze, low black clouds rolled towards the shore. As they neared, the rain grew heavier and louder with blasts of fork lightening splitting the sky, followed almost immediately by whip cracks and banging earsplitting bursts of thunder. The house shook and grew darker, as the storm passed over, and the windows rattled violently in their frames, while rivers of water gushed down the drain pipes and flooded the flag-stones on the terrace.

The storm raged on for almost an hour and, joining David in the lounge-room, we watched as we drank coffee and wondered at the drama and power of nature. Gradually, however, the pounding of the rain weakened, the deafening noise subsided, and finally the clouds moved away to the east, over the Willunga hills, leaving in their wake a sky scraped clear and blue, a bright yellow sun glittering fresh and white on our cottage, and the sea calmed and sparkling blue and rolling gently to shore with a shush of breaking waves.

Looking at the time, we realised our guests would soon be arriving, so we rushed away to get dressed and finish preparations for lunch on the terrace, grateful that summer storms have a tendency to fade as quickly as they flare.

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