I hate thunderstorms and have had a fear of them since I was a little girl. I suppose the sight of my mother covering up the mirrors and sprinkling holy water round the house, then shoving us into a cubby hole, might have had a part to play in this fear.

However, we have very few thunderstorms here, thank goodness, so I don't often have to tremble in terror. Last night I awoke with the crash of thunder overhead. Just as I realised what was happening, there was a bright flash of lightning, followed by another boom of thunder. I got out of bed and switched on the hall light. In a few seconds all the lights had gone off completely. This made the lightning even more illuminating. As another crash of thunder rolled, I jumped back into bed and covered my head with the duvet.

We had more thunder and lightning this afternoon and it was overhead again. It didn't last too long but the rain was torrential and apparently a lot of shops in the town had to close because of flooding.

A man collecting his two small children from a primary school just around the corner was struck and so were his two little children. The ambulance came and took them all to hospital. Apparently, the man and one of his children are critical and the other one is in a serious condition, suffering from burns. What a tragedy to happen especially in this country where thunderstorms are so rare. I hope they recover.

Ann, That's really something unusual to hear that people were struck by lightning in Lisburn?? I have been in a lot of thunderstorms all over the world which in a lot of cases were really scary and while I have heard of people being struck never witnessed any.
It used to be very scary in a thunderstorm at sea and I have witnessed a mast being struck which really scared the hell out of me as you can imagine???. Mauri