cauliflower in the sky

The rain started as I drove through Bath. By the time I had reached the north of the city it was raining as hard as I've ever known it in Britain.

Then it really started to pour.

Driving over the Mendips was a bit like cruising along the canal, but with more splashes coming up through the floor.

So I took it nice and easy, because you're a long time dead.

Dropping into Pensford I remembered the flood there that washed away the road bridge in the ...1950s? 

The van in front of me indicated right, and slowed down; it was about to turn into one of those lanes that come down at a sharp angle to the main road. I slowed to an almost-stop, and waited; then realised he needed to do a three pointer to get round the corner, I stopped.

There was an almighty THUMP. The van behind me had clouted the back end of the Moggy.

I won't go into details because TBH it's a bit upsetting. I'll be taking the car into the Morris Centre next week to have the damage assessed.

Anyway, I carried on with things, feeling a bit unreal. Later, I walked with Brendagh up the hill behind her house, and in the early evening sun we saw Brean Down, Steepholm and Flatholm, Lavernock Point at the tip of Glamorgan, and the far smudge of Exmoor and what was probably Countisbury Head in the far distance. You may need to click on the photo to enlarge it if you want to try spotting them too.

On Saturday I cycled down to the Benjamin Perry Boathouse on Redcliffe Quay in Bristol, for the bookstall that I was joining in with for the Bristol Doors Open weekend.

It was so busy that I didn't get time to tale a photo to show how busy it was. Here's a quiet moment with Mark Steeds of the Long John Silver Trust and Bristol Radical History Group, though. 

Every now and then there would be another great deluge of rain and the place would fill up with refugees. Outside, the Guides, who run the boathouse these days, were rowing and canoeing gamely to and fro, and hordes of visitors shuffled into the Redcliffe Caves.

It was nice to catch up with the Bristol book people; it's been a few years now since we last did one of these stalls.

Later, up on the side of the Cotswolds, I stopped to take the panoramic photo at the top, because the sky was so spectacular. I think that's a big cumulonimbus cloud in the middle. You cant see the one that looks a bit like a cauliflower, next to it, because the tree's in the way.