Thursday, September 27, 2012

Thursday extracts: perfect storm

IT BEGAN, as the greatest storms do begin, as a mere tremor in the air, a thread of sound so distant and faint, yet so ominous, that the ear that was sharp enough to catch it instantly pricked and shut out present sounds to strain after it again, and interpret the warning. Brother Cadfael had a hare’s hearing, readily alerted and sharply focused. He caught the quiver and bay, at this point surely still on the far side of the bridge that crossed Severn from the town, and stiffened into responsive stillness, braced to listen.

The Sanctuary Sparrow
The Seventh Chronicle of Brother Cadfael
Ellis Peters
1983


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Seems fitting, given the current weathr conditions.
I hope all's well in North Yorkshire aftr the floods.

2 comments:

snafu said...

Many years ago I watched a storm approach with my father, who had first spotted it. In an otherwise clear sky, all along the horizon you could see a very low bank of cloud with lightning flickering constantly all along it. It took a couple of hours to arrive, slowly rising up to cover the whole sky and then it broke over us. It was quite scary waiting for it to arrive and it was a very violent storm, but only local flooding. Since then I have been flooded and it is not nice, I feel very sorry for those affected by this recent rain. We have avoided it so far, but work is still in progress on the flood defences near here.

Hilary Melton-Butcher said...

Hi Anne .. great reminder about the Cadfael books ... the storms have been pretty terrible - I feel so sorry for those that keep getting flooded. My Scottish trip - the folks in that village are reflooded - my friends don't live there .. but it was the small town I stayed in ...

Cheers to quieter weather times ... Hilary