Twenty Minute Deluge

As the title of this post suggests a sudden, and thankfully short-lived, flash flood hit Middlewood the other day. There we were just having eaten our tea and sat watching The Simpsons when an extremely heavy rain storm kicked off. Nothing too unusual in that, after all this is Cornwall, but within minutes the sound of gushing water had me looking out of the front door to see a dirty brown river flowing past our front gate. All sorts of crud was being washed down the road and the local drains, useless in anything more than an inch of rain were did nothing except sit and watch as the torrent swept straight over the top of their metal grilles. Farther up the hill a waterfall of alarming proportions had appeared out of nowhere and was channeling water down off of the moorland above, which then gathered extra power as it was shot down the road and into the middle of our little hamlet. Frenzied activity ensued as we all rushed out and tried to clear drains with spades, metal poles, brooms. Then almost as suddenly as it had appeared the waters subsided, reduced to a small trickle and then disappeared leaving a pile of stones and rubbish in it's wake. Drama over, we boarded up the front door in case of more water then returned to catch the end of The Simpsons. Nice.