Struck By Lightning!

Monday night. I'd just uploaded my previous post, Summer and Sat Navs, about how sunny and hot it was now, when the storm clouds gathered up above.  Directly above.  Like, right over my house.

Thunder.  Lightning.  Torrential rain.  Quite spectacular actually.  I like thunderstorms.  Well, I used to like thunderstorms.

We were standing at the front door with our dog, letting him watch the downpour in the hope it might desensitise his aquaphobia a bit (its embarrassing having a Butch Staff tiptoeing through puddles like a fairy).

Just as I was turning to go back into the house there was a MASSIVE boom like all the air had been displaced at once and a blinding flash of light.

WE'D BEEN HIT BY LIGHTNING!

The house alarm blared.  All the hairs on my arms stood on end and tingled.  I've never been so scared in my entire life. I just stood in the middle of the living room not knowing where to go to be safe.  I almost ran across to dad's house over the road because my home wasn't safe any more and my old home might be.  I didn't dare sit down because we have recliners and they're made of metal and I didn't want to be anywhere near metal. 

The dog was fine.  Hubs went into chest-beating mode and calmly dismantled the house alarm to shut it off and checked we still had a roof (we had).  Not so much a direct lightning strike but a massive surge of static electricity, but that was bad enough, more than enough.

The thunderstorm raged for hours afterwards. Every time lightning sparked across the sky I cringed and cried, "We're going to die!  We're going to die!"

We didn't.  Obviously.

This morning I went into my study and turned on my computer. I had no internet.

NO INTERNET!

It was like having an arm cut off.  No internet means no work and no contact with the outside world!  The printer/fax/scanner was dead too, and the Big Computer wouldn't work either.

Bugger.

Buggerbuggerbuggerbugger.

I rang 'Computer Guru' Son.  "We've been hit by lightning!" I cried down the phone, "And I've got no internet!"

He came over.  Replaced the fried router, fixed the house alarm, took away the Big Computer, and declared the printer to be No More.

Star!

So I now have internet again.

And a pathological terror of thunderstorms.