We were soaked!

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Yesterday the girls and I planned a trip to the cinema, to see an animated adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s book ‘Kensuke’s Kingdom’, a story which they both enjoyed. It would be a nice outing to a small historic theatre which I haven’t been to in years (like, probably since before either of the girls was born). Traffic around here is terrible and parking is impossible so of course we planned to cycle there, it’s only three miles so an easy 20 minutes or so. We set off in plenty of time and although it was cool and overcast it was quite pleasant. We were just about half way there and waiting at traffic lights when suddenly the sky went dark, there was a flash of lightning and then the heavens opened. The rain was torrential! We dashed under a shop awning to wait for a little in case it was just one of those short sharp showers that passes quickly – but no, after 5 minutes or so we had to admit it wasn’t clearing up any time soon. So out we went into the rain and set off once more. Our shoes were full of water before we’d even got going properly and as we cycled down one back lane the ankle-deep water was rushing towards us literally like a river even though it had been raining less than 10 minutes in total! We hadn’t expected this at all – I had checked the weather forecast earlier – and only one of us was wearing anything even remotely waterproof. We were soaked to the skin. When we got to the cinema I took my shoes off and wrung about a cup of water out of each sock (outside of course!) We all enjoyed the film and the girls were cheered up with hot chocolate for one and ice cream for the other, but it wasn’t very warm in the cinema and there were only a few other people there, so we didn’t warm up and when we went outside afterwards (after putting our soaked shoes back on) Little One’s teeth were actually chattering as we unlocked our bikes. We were all glad to make it home for hot drinks and dry clothes! I don’t think any of our shoes are going to be at all the same again. The only consolation was that even if we had taken the car, by the time we had walked from wherever we found to park it we still would have been soaked. All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2024.