What a day yesterday was, driving along in sunshine minding my own business, make a right turn and......... WHO TURNED OFF THE SUN??? Blimey those clouds do not look very inviting.. FLASH... SIZZLE.... BANG! The whole bus vibrates from the clap of thunder directly overhead, twenty yards later with the wipers going full tilt I have to stop because I can't see where I'm going! To cut a long story short there followed the worst storm I have ever witnessed. The Whitley Bay area was just one big pond, one street had a foot high wall of water running down it, surprised no cars were washed along the road. The trip that was supposed to take an hour to complete took over two, everywhere I went there were flooded roads to go along, it was like several million gallon buckets of rain had just been tipped on Whitley Bay at the same time. Needless to say I lost quite a lot of mileage. The delays did not end there! Making my way back to the depot I joined a queue of traffic stretching for miles. After about forty five minutes of going nowhere I decide to take my chances and leave the main road for an alternative route. This turned out to be a very good decision, for although it took me a further hour to do the fifteen minute journey back to the depot (passing several vehicles stuck in floods, strangely most seemed to be BMWs and one of our own vehicles bogged down on a grass verge) other drivers that had stayed on the Coast Road in front of me took over four hours.
The journey home looked daunting, I had left my car at South Hylton Metro Station and travelled in on the Metro. The service was now suspended, I decide to walk the short journey to the Haymarket to see if I could get a bus to Sunderland or make my way to the Central Station and catch a local train home. Being in my Arriva uniform was not a good thing, people were stopping me and asking the most stupid questions like "where are all the buses? I've been waiting for two hours and not seen one" and " why isn't the Metro running?" some even threatening my well being, I eventually find a service that will at least get me to Washington Galleries which is only about three miles from home and much better than the twelve mile hike I would have had without it! Pauline eventually picks me up from nearby the Galleries and I arrive home around eleven p.m from leaving home at eight thirty a.m Most of the rain water had disappeared from the roads by yesterday (Friday) morning, there were still a few 'swimming pools' in local fields but no closed roads thank god! The Metro was still suspended and the traffic on the roads was horrendous but things were moving. Apparently it was a very rare occurrence, three types of storm in one, likened to the those they have occasionally in some tropical and American regions. Is this the future of the English summer? probably!
I'm now waiting for the builder that re-felted the out house roof to arrive, the corner blew up in the wind on Thursday night and he needs to re-fit it today! He will probably want more money to do it but in my mind it's happened because he did not do a proper job, none of the other roofs in the area have had a problem and there are quite a few as the council re-did all their out houses last year.
No comments:
Post a Comment