Thunder and lightning!!!

Lighting up the bedroom in an apocalyptic fashion!!!

I open one eye, take in what's happening and leap over to the window faster than Jimmy Carr's agent en route to the 'Countdown' offices.

On the other side of the road, the trees around the church light up. Not momentarily, as is normally the case with our pathetic English weather, but for seconds at a time in a constant barrage of electricity. It's less like a real storm than something out of the Dr Who special effects department.

No rubber monsters appear, which is reassuring, but I keep an eye out, just in case. An alien invasion would be exciting, but with my luck I'd get McCoy and Langford rather than Baker and Jameson.

More lightning, right overhead, swamping the road in brilliant blue-white light. As happens so often, I thank the Lord that I am not making my way to a fancy dress party where the dress code is tall metal hats.

There's something particularly cosy about being inside whilst a storm is raging. The walls here are around eighteen inches thick, which I know doesn't make a lot of scientific difference to thunder and lightning, but it feels safe and warm.

I always think about how terrified the ancient primitive men must have been in a situation like this. With no knowledge of the meteorological basis of the phenomenon, they must have thought the world was going to end. And nobody was around not to warn them not to wear tall metal hats.

Then the storm would pass, and they would go back to their primitive lives, chasing rabbits and impregnating their womenfolk.

We are more sophisticated now, of course, and the only thing that really scares me is Comments (0) and the thought that people watch 'Top Gear'.

The weather shows no sign of abating, and it's round the back now as well, across the fields of the estate. Water pours from the guttering and drum, drum, drums on the sills.

I belatedly close the window in the spare bedroom and make for the safety of the duvet.