I haven't had anything to blog about recently, I suppose that's a good thing. Before I go on, I think the term 'bright spark' might not be as common on this side of the Atlantic as back in Blighty so let me explain. The term is normally directed towards someone, but not in a positive sense. You wouldn't normally say "hey that kid's a real bright spark, he's got a full ride at Harvard", it would more commonly be used in a less complimentary way, such as "he's a real bright spark that one, couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery!"
In this ramble, I would be the first bright spark. Tonight, despite the warnings of my wife and every meterologist in town, I decided to take an easy cycle around Mactaquac Loop (45kms). All the weather forecasts were giving severe thunderstorm warnings. Despite having seen the devestating effects of a lightning strike first hand and the fact that the sky looked ominous, I ventured out. All was good as I toiled up Mactaquac hill towards the dam at which I would cross and return into town on the other side of the river. As I descended the steep hill I felt the first rain drops and the wind kicked in big time. I crossed the dam doing 45kms/hr with little effort, other than the occassional gust of wind sideways knocking me in towards the middle of the road. As I turned towards the city the wind hit me head on reducing my speed into the 20s and then I witnessed the first bolt of lightning across the river. I looked down river and the ominous black cloud stretched as far as I could see. Better get a move on!
It didn't take long before lightnig #2 was witnessed and the rain started. Unfortunately, I wasn't making much progress back towards town into the strong head wind. More lightning and now light rain - not looking good. At least I wasn't hearing thunder yet. I started to look for a place to wait out the impending storm as the rain started to come down harder and then more lightning. Shit, that's a bit too close, a place to hide quick. You certainly feel pretty exposed out in the country cycling. Now it was really starting to come down, over the hill, round the corner, yes Aggies Restaurant with a large overhang. Poor Aggies seems to have met its demise, but it was a great place to watch a massive storm from. Within 2 minutes of being out of the rain there was a lightning strike within 100m or so of me. Very loud crack of thunder.
After watching the storm for about 15 minutes, it was still lobbing it down and lightning and thunder was still in the area I noticed that across the road there were 5 teenagers dressed only in shorts dicking around in the field enjoying the rain and possibly oblivious to the lightning in the area. One guy even ran up to the road and was waving at passing vehicles. Now, I admit I was foolish to go against the advice of every weatherman in town, but if this is natures way of culling the human herd, I certainly just moved off the top of the list. In fact, I then noticed that there was a trampoline in the field and one of them was jumping up and down on it. If that's not saying "pick me, pick me" I don't know what is.
Another 15 minutes later the storm subsided and I made it back safe, sound and wiser (maybe).
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