Crazy weather

A bit of a desperate shot out of the window, just to remind me how wacky the weather was today. Especially compared to yesterday. A walk was definitely not on the cards today.

At lunchtime it rained torrentially, while simultaneously the sun was shining brightly. I went out to look for a rainbow but duly got soaked, no rainbow. Then at about 4:30 I set off to collect S from the airport. The autoroute was apocalyptic, with high wind and biblical rain. Dark grey clouds cut off the sun, thunder rumbled, rain battered against the windscreen, spray everywhere ... at one point I was driving along the inside lane well below the speed limit with my hazard lights on because there were so many people driving too fast and too close when you couldn't see more than about 5 metres ahead.

Still, I made it safely to Grand Frais where I bought food to last us over the weekend. The rain was a bit less intense when I came out. Off to the airport where I checked Flightradar. The plane had taken off on time, and was predicted to arrive early. Ten minutes later, another woman and I looked up from our phones and caught each other's eye. "The flight an hour ago ended up landing in Toulouse," she said. We each watched our phones as the plane did a U-turn towards the north. Uh-oh. "Oh, it's OK, just doing a loop!" We both monitored two figures of eight over the next few minutes. It was still raining, but the thunder and lightning were fading. Then: oh, it's heading east! Is it going to land in Béziers or something? But after a long loop it headed back and, yes, eventually landed only five minutes after the scheduled time. You could tell who was watching Flightradar: we got up a minute before it landed to look out of the window.

In the time it took for the passengers to disembark, the sun came out and shone brightly on the pools of water everywhere. On the way back down the autoroute we were in our own little bubble of sunshine, with chaotic storm clouds all round the horizon. The light was amazing.

So, both back home now. S has brought back a cold, and thinks he lost his other glasses on the plane due to the bumpy landing ... they must have slid off the seat :(