Nenya.net

Sunshine and showers

It has been far too long since I've written anything on my blog- I fully admit this, but life has been pretty busy here recently- lots of conferences and work to be done as a result of them and then just getting on with life as normal.

We've also been lacking internet at work since last Friday and I've had to take a few days off sick (tho' am now feeling much better). The walk last Saturday was up Sugarloaf (great views from the top but a bit of a clamber to get up there), which I avoided due to being ill for the previous 2-3 days and instead watched far too much Spooks at a friend's house.

The rainy season has begun in earnest it seems- some pretty huge 'showers' of rain coming down- well, actually huge thunderstorms that can be pretty dramatic to watch but are more annoying when you're trying to catch a few more minutes sleep before having to get up and go to work! In fact, that pretty much describes a lot of how this morning went- I just about managed to avoid getting drenched between the house and the car, but the rain hits the ground so hard that even if you're using an umbrella you're likely to get pretty wet as the rain that misses you on the way down, catches you as it bounces up again. In fact, the only 'benefit' of the rain was that I didn't face quite as many traffic jams as normal on my way into work, although heading up one road did feel like the car was trying to drive up a river as the deep channels at the sides of the road had so much water gushing down them that they were overflowing into the road. One of my colleagues told me of a 30-car pile up near Lumley roundabout this morning on his way into work- there's a short section between two roundabouts where there's no tarmac and the road is just hard earth/mud, well, under torrential rains, this had become impassable for all but the most able vehicles and please remember that however intrepid the taxi drivers here are, I haven't seen a taxi that I would class among the 'most able' of vehicles here.

We also faced a plague (well, one night) of flies, which we've also been told marks the beginning of the rains, as they 'emerge' after the first big rains. This happened last week and the flies were highly attracted to any light sources and even managed to get in through closed windows- metal bars on the window didn't seem to discourage them at all, but we've been told this is a one-off event, so are settling down to wait for the rains to continue. Having said that, looking outside of my office now, there's gorgeous sunlight and bits of blue sky, so it doesn't feel like we're really in the rainy season at the moment! We'll obviously see how many more trips we can make to the beach before there's more rain than sun on the weekends!

Labels: car, rain, sun, traffic

posted by Nenya @ 1:40 pm