The first day of the month dawned sunny. One of our Peak District cottages out today. A busy morning with laundry and rubbish to be collected. Also my half lamb for the freezer was ready to be collected from New Close Farm at Over Haddon so I drove over there and collected it. Just before lunch we also had delivery of our two new suites (the older ones are being freecycled). After lunch I set off for Buxton. Chris had gone to York to visit his mum. As it was still sunny and warm in Bakewell I didn’t bother taking my jacket although showers were forecast. As I headed to Chelmorton the sky was very dark and the next thing I knew the heavens opened and I found myself in the middle of the storm. The hail was so hard that I thought my windscreen would break and the road disappeared under the rain and hail. I was really quite worried. Luckily it stopped by the time I parked the car in Buxton. Did my chores then went over to Morrisons and when I emerged it was already starting to rain again and I got caught in another storm driving home – luckily not as bad as the earlier one. When I got home I found two traumatise dogs as they don’t like storms and they stayed close to me for an hour or so until the rumbling finally finished. Chris had unplugged the phones bearing in mind our tendency to suffer near lightening strikes, but I was able to plug them back in later. I spoke to Joanna who had had to get the cows in during the storm and Andrew had been worried they might have a power cut during milking but luckily they didn’t. Chris was home by 10pm. Phew what a day!