Lightening and breakfast

Hi Everyone,

Around seven o'clock on Thursday evening while watching television I suddenly realised that night had fallen. The slight problem involved the fact that at that time of the evening it should still be light, still sunny even. But the darkness was thick and all enveloping.

Then came that familiar distant rumble of thunder with the huge drops of rain following shortly after. An early summer storm is not usual at all, but we had little idea what was on the way. For the next three hours almost constant lightening lit up the sky. The thunder never stopped rolling, just peaks and troughs in the noise level but never quiet. If ever the phrase, the Heavens opened, meant something it was during those three hours. And finally the wind grew and grew until it sounded like the roof was coming off. Never have I seen such a storm.

By the end of the evening one person was dead, over 250 trees had fallen blocking many streets and roads and parts of the city had no electricity. For a time all the TV stations went down and the mobile network also crashed. And it was not just Bucharest that experienced this - Ploiesti had a huge hail storm, Timisoara was lashed by heavy rain and winds and Craiova was left with fallen trees. And in the countryside a field containing 200 sheep was hit by lightening killing all the sheep.

The weekend before we had gone to the "muddy volcanoes". These are unique in Europe. Small volcanoes of mud bubble up continuously about 200kms north east of Bucharest. The result is an eeire lunar landscape of cracked mud mounds and the occasional belch from a liquid mud mini volcano. Surprisingly the mud is quite cold - I thought it would be super heated from below like lava or water in geysers.

The following weekend was followed by a holiday Monday (June 1st). So we took the opportunity to get away from Bucharest again and went to Sibiu in Transylvania. In 2007 Sibiu was European Capital of Culture and it is a lovely place with beautiful old buildings, a great picturesque square and a relaxed atmosphere. The fact that it was beautifully hot weather also enhanced the place. Sibiu is in the mountains where the air is fresher and cooler than Bucharest. But that weekend it was still 32c (nearly 90F). Those of you who have been to hot climates will know that you are always warned to keep hydrated and not consume too much alcohol. Unfortunately no-one seems to have informed Tiberiu's relatives who we stayed with. We came down for breakfast to find a bucket of tuica waiting for me. Tuica is a strong clear alcoholic drink made from plums. Tibi does not drink alcohol at all so they only stopped trying to get him to have some after one hour of constant pressure. But they saw that glimmer of weakness in my eye and that was it. Tibi's uncle kicked the chair from under me, pinned me to the floor with his knee and his wife got the tube down my throat, fitted the funnel and emptied the bucket. I think I gained consciousness about 3 days later. Tibi's uncle makes his own tuica.....and wine.....so the second I could focus they poured a two litre coca cola bottle of red wine down my throat.

Actually it is not as bad as it sounds having your stomach pumped.

On the way back from Sibiu we reached the only complete motorway in Romania (from Pitesti to Bucharest). Just 2 minutes on that motorway there was a huge bang and the car began to shake wildly. Tibi did a great job keeping control of it and getting over to the hard shoulder. One of the rear tyres had literally exploded, there was an enormous hole in the side of it. Thankfully we were safe and eventually returned to Bucharest just a few hours later than planned.

For those of you in the UK I hope you cope with the heatwave they are forecasting this week.

Take care. All the best,

Andrew xx