The Noise, the Noise.

We’re currently experiencing the third electrical storm of the day in my part of the UK. The first was distant and dry, the second was right overhead and brought dark skies and torrential rain (some of which found its way into my house as torrential rain usually does), and the one we’re getting now is close with light rain.

This is the first time I ever remember having three electrical storms in one day. To my recollection, such events used to happen two or three times a year, usually after a hot, sultry spell of weather in high summer. Now they’re happening far more often and in all seasons. They’re also lasting longer. The present one started 2½ hours ago and is showing no signs of abating yet. They mostly used to last around three quarters of an hour to an hour maximum.

No doubt this is all due to climate change, and it’s a worry for the future because I’m wondering how long it will be before we’re treated to our first genuine hurricane. We often get the tail end of Atlantic hurricanes here on the north-west fringes of Europe, but they’ve always lost some of their energy by the time they get here and been downgraded to named storms. They can still be pretty wild, but not on the scale experienced by the Caribbean and the east coast of North America. And when they do start to arrive I can see them causing unprecedented problems because people, structures, and systems are generally not prepared for what they’re not used to getting.

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Oddly, today has been somewhat characterised by loud noise. I was woken out of a deep slumber this morning by an almighty racket going on outside, and assumed the neighbours were having some major work done. It turned out to be the farmer come to cut my boundary hedge with his trusty McConnell hedge trimmer. (And McConnell hedge trimmers are very loud beasts indeed.)

In all the years he’s been cutting my hedges, he’s never started at the top of the garden close to the house before. He’s always started at the bottom of the garden. And his schedule has always meant that he’s arrived at my property late on a Saturday afternoon, not first thing in the morning. See what I mean about not being prepared for what you’re not used to getting?

But he did a very good job so I didn’t complain.