Fright night

Back to work today, after the hols. I thought I would get an early night to be ready for the huge pile of stuff that would be waiting for me to deal with (oh boy, was I right about that!).

There was "Criminal Minds" on the telly, and I fell asleep during one of the 20-odd minute advert breaks so beloved of Spanish TV programmers.

Anyway, about 1 a.m. I was woken up by a huge bang like a shot which left me a little bewildered (particularly because I thought for a moment that I was in Castelldefels). Then came another, and another and then they increased in frequency until I realised that we were in the middle of a hailstorm. And what a hailstorm! I got up and closed the windows and dropped all the blinds all the way down, and could hear the hail chinging off the balcony railings and sometimes hitting my poor blinds with tremendous force. I thought for a moment about going out onto the balcony and bringing in my jasmine and hibiscus pots, but soon thought much better of it. Even though they have roofs, I would probably have been seriously pelted. Living on the top floor under a flat roof means that the hail literally thundered down on top of me.

Ruff and Tumble, of course, were panic stricken, much as they are during fireworks or when people let off those huge bangers when their football team scores here. It took me quite some time to coax a trembling Tumble from under the sofa. Ruff decided to settle the matter by attaching himself to my heels with invisible adhesive. This went on for the best part of half an hour and by all accounts it had the city centre awash and Underground tunnels flooded for quite some time.

So obviously, there being nothing better to do, I turned the TV on again to lull me back to sleep, but I had one cat on my pillow and one snuggled up against my tummy for the entire night.

Just what you need on the night before your first day back at work. No wonder I can't stop yawning this afternoon. I'm just going to have to grit my teeth and try to avoid resorting to the caffeine, though!