Donner und Blitzen!

I put down the cutlery nervously and we checked our shoes had rubber soles during a thunderstorm at about dinner time on Saturday. A bolt of lightning shot down right outside the window and the television went off for several seconds. (I checked the weatherboards on Sunday morning and was pleased to find no evidence of singeing.)

I’d been planning to check the letterbox, but the metal latch on the gate made me think twice. I could imagine the voices of people in the past who had been struck by lightning warning me: ‘Don’t do it!’ The week before I’d heard a survivor interviewed on the radio. The lightning strike had blown a hole in the sole of his favourite red band gumboots.

When the storm had passed, the sun came out even though it was still raining. The garden was vibrant with bright light.