BLUE FLASH

OK fellow bloggers, here’s a little piece of fun for you. It all happened on a cold, rainy, dark night in Liberia… Well it was dark anyway. Mariel and I were driving home from a crazy day of looking after kids. It was about 11 when it started to rain – and when it rains here, it rains. Next there’s a flash of lighting and a crash thunder. No big deal – I’ve been in plenty of thunderstorms before. So we roll up to our gate. Which just happens to be one of the large iron kinds. I back the car up, and it starts really pouring down. There is a big bang just as I’m jumping out of the car, so I dash to close the gate. (Yes, the big red iron one – I know, but someone’s got to close it!) I get to within about 12 inches of it when the air became so full of static you could feel your hair standing up on your arms. Then before you could say ‘this could hurt’, the sky lights up all around me with the biggest crack of thunder my little ears have ever heard. It was bright daylight for a second as I watched the lighting strike maybe 50 feet away. But that wasn’t what got my attention – it was the BLUE FLASH that jumped from the gate to my thumb as I was still in the process of trying to close the gate. It was like a static shock you get from cars but a touch bigger.
As you can see, I lived to tell the tale. But I did have a witness: a black mark on my thumb for a day or so. I’m also a bit more wary of thunder storms now too. One last thing: don’t tell my mum.