There was a thunderstorm in the night. It was a proper boomshanka, mother-hubbard, shit-storm of a storm. I wasn’t expecting it. There were no pre-warnings on the weather forecast. Claire was the first to notice the storm approaching. She noticed flashes of light in the sky. Given the fact it was the middle of the night and I was asleep, when she asked me, in my comatose state, if I had seen it, I replied ‘no’. I think she was reassured when the storm finally did arrive, by which point I was awake and able to see it too and confirm she wasn’t seeing things and going mad. As tends to be the way with all thunderstorms, there were lots of flashes of light and bangs of thunder, which seemed to go on for hours, but in reality, probably 10 minutes. I quite like thunderstorms if I am indoors, safe, dry and warm. However, if I am outside, it is a bit shit-your-pants-scary. I get worried I’ll be struck by lightning. I know the chances of that happening are something like 100,000/1, but I don’t like those odds. Besides which, I play the National Lottery, with the (stupid) belief that I may win it one day. If I believe I can win the lottery, with their crazy odds, my brain can certainly convince itself that my body could randomly be struck by a trillion volts of electricity.

Luckily, by morning, when it was time for me to walk to work, the storm had long gone. Probably up t’north to electrocute some Mancunian. The air was cool as well. Recently it had been like wandering around in a giant oven. I think I could have roasted a chicken, potatoes and Yorkshire pudding, had I left them in the garden for a couple of hours, or however long it takes to cook chicken… 30 minutes plus another half an hour per pound.

After my mammoth commute to work (a 10 minute walk around the corner), I treated myself to a Mattys breakfast. This is a weekly tradition for many in my department, and something I rarely participate in. However, today I pushed the boat out, went the whole hog, and got a full English breakfast, substituting hash browns for tomato. On the occasions I do have a Matty’s, my choice of egg is always fried, although this time I went for something I had never tried before… poached. Yes, that’s right, before today I had never eaten a poached egg. As of this morning, I have lost my poached egg virginity.

It has been a busy morning in the office, with staff out on annual leave and whatever. But with little over two hours left until home time, I am being kept sane, in the knowledge that the weekend awaits… well as sane as I can be my by standards.

I hope this blog has been sufficient. I know recently, my efforts have been pretty poo. I hope this makes up for things. If you think it does, please send me money and I will blog some more.