Ack! I've been trying to put together a post about what happened today, but I just can't seem to string a sentence together.

Well, in short Bethan flooded the bathroom - one inch of water and twenty minutes to get it off the floor before I needed to get up the road to fetch Allison from school and go to a birthday party.

Joy.

When I get to school, dripping wet with sweat and mucky ankles, totally unready to interact with a dozen or so mums and dads, I find out that Allison's decided that half her dinner would look better on her t-shirt, so on our way to the party - which starts exactly 45 minutes after school ends - we have to go buy a new t-shirt.

Joy (part two, the revenge).

So we head to the nearest shops. Nothing doing. Apart from the rain, which starts in earnest while I'm standing at a bus stop in nothing but a gilet. Oh it's waterproof alright, it's a good 'un. My torso is nice and dry, nice and warm. Arms? Legs? already squelchy shoes? Don't ask.

Luckily, next to the bus stop is one of those ever-present, never-useful tat-for-a-quid shops. In we sprint. I drop a shiny gold coin on the counter and ask where their umbrellas are. Cue flash of evil enjoyment as I grab a big colourful brolly and walk out, looking for all the world as if I'm blatantly shoplifting.

So now I'm not in any immediate fear of drowning on my feet. While we wait for the bus, another two families have the same idea. For some reason, the bus took ages to turn up. So we get to the next batch of shops with 15 minutes to go. No problem. The place is only five minutes round the corner. The rain really means it now, so even with the new umbrella aloft, it's a good idea to leg it.

Two shops later, we have a new t-shirt and we can finally head off on the last leg of our journey - and we'll just be in time.

Only there are a couple of problems:

One is a car crash not far from where we live, which has caused a traffic jam right up to where we are, three miles away.

The other is that we're caught a mile from the centre of Birmingham's...Moseley's second tornado of the year.

Let me tell you what it's like to be stuck in a tornado-type storm. It's like someone got a really big bucket and tipped it over you. It gets really heavy, then as heavy as you've eevr seen it, then heavier again. It gets so heavy that your cheapo umbrella stops working. It starts raining inside that umbrella and you're left standing there looking up, wondering what's going on and looking stupid because you're standing under a crap umbrella that doesn't keep the rain off. Drivers turn into sadistic twats as they aquaplane gleefully through the two inch deep lakes that used to be roads, soaking anyone insane enough to walk within ten feet of them - which is, of course, everyone, because the pavement is wide, yes, but only ten feet wide.

The bus took another 40 minutes to arrive. We eventually got to the party with five minutes left of the first hour - the hour she was looking forward to, where you get to race unstoppably around a jungle of soft shapes and slides filled two feet deep with big plastic balls. She dives in, jumps on her friend, heads for a ladder...

And is called out for part two - food and party games. Very unsatisfying. Tears ensued.

All was eventually well though. Not wanting the party to be a faliure, the nice people at the Wacky Warehouse gave her a free half hour go in the ball jungle after the party, so all was smiles and balloons and slushies all the way home.

And I tell you, it's a day I'm really glad to call "over".

Y'know, "unsatisfying" is an excellent word for everything that's happened today. Unsatisfying and tiring and unsettling. And wet.

G'night.

P.S. - Thanks to Swiss Toni for reminding me how crap I am at Pub Quizzes. And congrats to T'Urban Fox on the first anniversary and the shiny new home, too.

P.P.S. - Yeah, well it started off being short, didn't it?