Really hot and sticky here, just started to lash rain (love that hot wet smell from the garden) and on BBC Parliament (sad git that I am), i'm finally catching up with Sarko's first address to the EP under the French Presidency ... seriously, the Guardian's Steve Bell has him to a tee ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/stevebell/0,,2208269,00.html

There are better cartoons than that, he did a whole strip on Sarko, can't find them on the website at the moment but will look for them again. Do check out Bell's cartoons.

Some atmospherics but no rain.

Squire wrote:

Some atmospherics but no rain.

Rain has completely eased off here. I feel cheated and disappointed.

johnfás wrote:

ditto

Tis truly terrible to Terenure and to here.

Tomorrow should have more in the way of rain.

I've been trying to take pics of the red sky and the rain for you all, but it's just not working properly.

Ah well...

For pictures of the rain, use as strong a flash as you possibly can. It might be in options under something like flash intensity - it depends on the age of your camera though. Also raise the ISO if you can, it might be in the options.

For the sky, you need to make a longer exposure (slower shutter speed) and raise the ISO if you have those kinds of options. Otherwise you might have some best shot settings like portrait, landscape, night mode etc, best I can say is play about with those.

The rain is stopped now - and I'm the one feeling cheated. Grrrr.

Yeah, I took them on the night mode but kind of blotchy.

No rain at all here

...getting stupid here, hurricane-Floridian-type torrential rain combined with really, really warm temperatures, no hope of sleep and my Sky satellite connection is distinctly dodgy for the first time ever ... tv turned off, patio door open, aaahhhhhh .... lovely ....

Atticus wrote:

...getting stupid here, hurricane-Floridian-type torrential rain combined with really, really warm temperatures, no hope of sleep and my Sky satellite connection is distinctly dodgy for the first time ever ... tv turned off, patio door open, aaahhhhhh .... lovely ....

I have a notion that there was a little community of MN posters all doing the very same thing last night.

It is absolutely lashing here at the moment, I heard the first major showers when watching Newsnight. It looks like we're in for a soaker tomorrow as well!

Not raining here yet but it is down in Bray.

Oh, there we go, just starting. Not lashing though.

Lashing away here too. I've been in my mother's attic for the last few hours with two of my sisters rescuing the detritus of our younger days as it hammered down on the Velux windows.

Did anyone else have a memo book in school?

A homework notebook?

Raining here too. I had thrown a sheet of plastic over some chopped wood, and the sound of each drop that hits it is separately audible.

johnfás wrote:

A homework notebook?

It might have been - one of the two that I (forgot that I) had was a homework notebook, full of notes and messages and long memos from people in my school, whom I knew one way or anothers. They're still in my mother's (I had no car with me to bring stuff home), but every page I turned reminded me of people who were an everyday part of my life for years and whom I never see at all now. I really only keep in touch with one person from secondary school - and we've been friends forever. And there were debs photos (cringe) and school annuals (cringer) and all kinds of memories I thought I'd disposed of.

OK, the rain's eased off again. It's not lashing.

We had a lovely double rainbow here at sunset, two full arches. Does that count as weather?

31st July. Pissing buckets and windy. I think God is angry.

I did curse in front of my grandmother. Maybe that annoyed him?

905 wrote:

I did curse in front of my grandmother. Maybe that annoyed him?

Depends on whether she heard you or not.

But HE heard you.

I was loud. It was a sledghammer and it was my knuckle.

The weather's expected to be fairly wet tomorrow. Today was very overcast, there was a constant level of showers. We're not having a sunny Summer at all.