Yesterday evening Tess gave birth to an, as yet, unnamed baby girl. All is well, and she is a second shared grandchild for Jackie and me. Ever the cryptic wit, Mat, when giving Becky the news, said ‘Mum’s got 2, Dad’s got 7’. He left her to provide the solution: ‘a girl’. My other two grandchildren are a young man and a boy.
There are two reasons that we cannot visit them immediately, one quite bizarre. The first is that I am probably now the only reasonably germ-free member of the party.
Five days ago, at the Shoreham Air Show, a plane failed to come out of a downward loop, and, exploding, crashed onto the busy A27 road which is our route into East Sussex. Continuous torrential rain has hampered the clearance of the wreckage and discovery of charred bodies of cyclists and motorists. The route therefore remains closed.
The first of the following pictures was my view through the patio window at around 11.30 this morning; the other three Becky shot of her car being directly pounded by the rain and sprayed with gutter-silt by passing vehicles.
The accident itself was unusual enough, but the extent of the rain, shown by these photographs show just what is hampering investigators, and sending holidaymakers home in droves this week. At Mr Pink’s yesterday evening, a family incongruously clad in summer clothes, were buying fish and chips for sustenance on their way back home to Stockport, 250 miles away. They had given up.
The perversity of our weather was demonstrated three hours later, when the skies cleared, and the sun emerged.
Small White butterflies frolicked among the bidens.
In the ten days I have remained indoors the ginger lilies have bloomed,
and the well-watered apples are ripening.
This evening, Becky produced a delicious deep 15″ ham and vegetable pasta bake for our dinner.
Four filled dinner plates,
didn’t make much of a hole in it.
Ian drank San Miguel; Jackie, Hoegaarden; and Becky and I, Teroldego Rotaliano riserva 2011.