Monday 20 June How we beat the rain

Last night a huge electrical storm. I got a shock, through my computer I thought. We cut all the lights, lit candles. Heavy rain and lightning right overhead. Hydro is off until 10 in the morning, a fuse blown at the condenser down by West Bay road. The MB returns from a weekend in Sydney when he ate three 2 lb lobsters and drank half a bottle of rum to discover that the whole site is flooded, inside the footing and out. We straighten and brace two walls, then decide to dig out the drainage. I hack like an Irish navvy while the MB in his ageing excavator neatly cuts a V-shaped channel into which the thousands of litres rushes. The sun shines on our efforts, a cold wind blows and our spirits are up. It actually feels like a house now.