Storm

Crack and roar of thunder and lightning. Drops pounding the pavement. Water gushing in the gutters. Roll of thunder across the sky. Dark green air. Light like flourescents. Ill prepared people in their summer clothes and shoes. I'm not ready for my new birkenstocks to get splattered with rain, but at least I'm not drenched to the skin yet. Fork of lightning targets the corner of Euston station. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up prickly with excitment. Finally catch the bus. It washes gutter water over the pavement in its wake.

Later, watching the sheets of lightning flashing in the sky behind a church with a dome half way up Highgate Hill. A second flash of rain. The street becomes a river. All the fag ends from Highgate swept down to Archway. The lightning gets brighter and thunder louder as the storm gets nearer and nearer. The bus on the way home crosses Suicide Bridge and for a moment we are close to the highest thing around - lampposts on the bridge.

Standing at the top of the hill watching the lightning across the north east of London. Quiet now as it retreats. I cross the railway footbridge which must have been a torrent earlier - the debris of the waterflow evident like discarded silt of a river. In the middle a huge puddle that requires paddling through in preference to ruining the new sandals. Barefoot in the street. Lightning flashes. Smell of wet. Rather wonderful.