BARBECUE WASH OUT

[Karan]:  Summer was on a Monday this year - I do hope you enjoyed it! True to form, following 74 days of blistering, sweltering sunshine, the Dennis family ventured outdoors for a BBQ, and it rained. Again! It didn't just rain though, oh no.  If you're local to Kettering and are able to remember Saturday night, we had a full blown electrical thunderstorm - complete with forked lightening and a tropical downpour for good measure, and it was all our fault.

You see, we have form.  I don't ever remember having a BBQ in the dry.  Years ago, before the children were born, Ian and I went on holiday to our bolt-hole on the South Coast.  We had been equally blessed with glorious weather and decided upon a BBQ with a couple of friends and a few beers etc.  The universe duly led us into a false sense of security by letting us buy the food, chill the drinks and prepare the salad etc.  Ian was even allowed to set fire to the BBQ, our preparations were all going swimmingly; this was going to be a great night!  Then the raw food came out to be cooked and the heavens opened, right on cue.

Ian is tremendously practical, inventive and a smidge stubborn at times; no rain was going to wash out his BBQ!  He then went on to devise a temporary shelter comprising of two sheds a wind breaker and an over sized umbrella, which he resolutely parked himself under as he continued to cook the food.  The rest of us ran inside and watched from a safe, dry distance, waiting patiently for our food to be delivered by a sodden but determined hero in flip flops!  There is photographic evidence of these proceedings somewhere, but I know not where for the time being - hence this rather accurate cartoon - with all thanks and recognition to Johnny Cartoons at http://www.toonpool.com/ 

And then history repeated itself on Saturday.  We have attended other people's BBQ's and the weather has remained gorgeous, even with us there - we just don't seem to be able to have a BBQ of our own.  As in the past, everything had been prepared; rolls buttered, salad tossed, sauces and drinks all ready willing and able - and all in glorious sunshine.  Then Ian made the fateful walk to the kitchen for the food - it even made it onto the hot coals, but then a minute later raindrops the size of tennis balls plunged to earth - our parched scorched lawn sprang into leafy green again before our eyes.  I could have sworn that the black clouds were just hovering over our house, but Ian said that I was being paranoid.  Now that we have children things are different.  We tried to wait it out under the garden umbrella to see if it would pass, but it didn't until we were all packed up and back inside the house.  We then had more thunder and lightening as the evening progressed, and other houses in the street got wet too, so it wasn't just us.  It appears I really am paranoid.

Sorry if your BBQ was drowned out on Saturday because of our irresponsible actions.  I promise - although Ian most certainly doesn't - never to BBQ again.