Candes Saint-Martin, my favourite spot in La Touraine.

Saturday 4 January 2014

A watery post ... in many ways

Posting the photo of the two ‘exotic’ water bottles yesterday, has inspired me to do a short series on … water! Don’t worry, I’m not planning a virtual tour of all the mineral water springs worldwide. Because I reckon there are more types of mineral water than there are wines. What do your think? I wonder if anybody has ever made a comparative study on this subject! Would make an interesting retirement project, wouldn't it?

SPA, from Belgium and Contrex from France.

Two familiar mineral waters which will be competing in my test 
with the bottles shown yesterday. 


But before getting to the subject of bottled water, I want to tell you about the celestial water we received yesterday. Our weatherman Frank had mentioned the possibility of a storm bringing some thunder and lightning yesterday afternoon. No extreme warning though, and completely unlike the severe storm warnings he gave us on Dec. 5th and Christmas Eve, when the whole country, and especially the coastline were on orange alert. Those two storms turned out to be storms in a teacup. OK, there were some loud and strong gusts of wind, and on the coast some brave photographers had a very interesting field day.  But where I live and in the rest of the country, we had that somewhat ‘Bufff,-is-that-all-there-is-to-it’ feeling.

Yesterday, things surely were different. As I said, no extreme warning … just a local (unusual) winter thunderstorm. Nothing to be worried about. ‘Mon oeil!’ (My eye!) This wintry thunderstorm turned out to be the worst of the lot. Little before 5 p.m. I watched the northerly sky turn a menacing black. Half an hour later I was slightly alarmed by a rumbling noise. Looking out towards the south I saw some very fierce lightning and rain being swept almost horizontally over the ground. Traffic was slowing down, while the rain, the wind, the lightning and thunder continued.

It didn't last long; only 5 to 7 minutes or so. There was no obvious damage, but later when watching the 6 o’clock news, I learnt that the area between Brussels and Antwerp had suffered considerable damage: the roof the KV Mechelen soccer stadium (premier league) had been blown away, several trees had fallen on the overhead electric wires, stopping trains … in which over 500 people were trapped for almost 5 hours before they could be evacuated and driven to their destination by coaches. Another black day for our national train company, which already has a bad reputation when it comes to running on time! 

So get out your umbrellas and wellies, because there are more watery stories coming up! 

6 comments:

Carolyn said...

Wow! Scary weather. I'm glad you were safe indoors.

Bob said...

in the US we have to worry about tornados when you have that type of weather. very scary to say the least. Be sure to check out coconut water. I think any filtered water is probably as good as any bottled water. While it's convenient and they sell a lot, i'm not sure it's any better than tap water, assuming you have good water.

Amanda said...

I agree with Bob about the waters and the type of weather you experienced yesterday; as I was reading, I was thinking that your description was perfect tornado weather. I am glad you and your mother were safe.

Louise said...

I so enjoyed seeing your Fiji water in the last post...water from my part of the world! It is so hot here in Australia that water is a huge component in staying healthy ... But we are fortunate to have great tap water.

chm said...

Here is a French joke that doesn't mean anything in English:
Il ne faut pas boire d'eau, c'est dangereux, car l'eau bue (obus) éclate!

ladybird said...

Carolyn, The storm was unexpected and quite impressive. But unlike some, we didn't suffer any damage.

Bob, The quality of our tap water is not top. Too hard and the taste is really bland. I'll drink it when I have nothing else on hand ...

Nadege, Thank you. Luckily we were spared.

Louise, The Fiji water is great. I love it. It's a bit expensive, but really worth it, our tap water being really tasteless.

Chm, LOL! My French speaking colleagues were really impressed when I came up with this clever 'jeu de mots'. Merci!