Fecking Rain.

Well, it has come to that beautiful time of year again. An Irish Summer. I must stress the word Summer, because as any other Irish person will tell you, it is not really a Summer at all. More like a pissathon where the skys open up and drown us in our own misery for three solid months. And yet every year, around March, like walking ghosts people shuffle about, huddle together, share their rumors that this Summer will be the hottest on record. And our hopes rise, as maybe we get three days of concentrated sunshine in mid-April (Jaysus, I saw the thermometer reach 15 degrees Celsius! Hotter then Spain! I just had to go inside to spare me of the heat) and we say: This is it. This is the summer we have been waiting for.

But that short three-day heat-wave is quickly cut short, and clouds roll in, spilling rain, and reluctantly, the brollies come back out again. Then, that dreaded day arrives. The first of June. The day that will determine everyone's idea of the weather for the whole season. It is kind of a silent rule, that the first of June should have such power, but it just does. And this year, to everyone's dismay, the rain came pounding down in all it's glory on that faithful day.

And. It. Hasn't. Fucking. Stopped. Since.

What date is it now? The twenty eighth? It has rained all month, and the forecasters that all Irish people hate so much have said: It's set to continue until September. September. The thought of it makes me feel ill. But why am I writing this now? Why not the twenty-second? Or the fifteenth? Sure, it's been raining constantly all this time, right? Well, something happened last night. Something that, if you look up on any Irish news website, you'll see splashed across the headlines.

Last night we had a storm. A very, very bad storm.

Let's skip back to yesterday evening. I was out for dinner with a friend. It was drizzling, which was no surprise. The sky was that awful bulky-grey colour that lacks texture or excitement. But, we had already suffered twenty-seven days of it already, so it didn't particularly catch my attention. After a pleasant meal, where we shared plans for the summer and a delicious toffee-pavlova dessert, it was time to go home. It was about eleven pm. As we stepped out of the restaurant, I realized the rain was starting to get very, very heavy. Heavy enough for me, an Irish person, to notice.

So, I was given a lift home, and I noticed how rapidly the wipers on the windscreen were flicking from side to side to get rid of the constant wall of rain that seemed to be hammering down on us with all it's might. I arrived home, and got ready for bed. At about twelve, something happened which may seem stupid but believe me is relevant (kind of) to the story. My eleven year old sister, giggling, stumbled into my room and told me I simply had to come into her room and see this hilarious video she found on the web. I was there scrolling through useless shite on my iphone, so I realized I had nothing better to do and followed her in. Anyway, she seemed to find whatever she had watched very funny.

She told me to sit down in front of the laptop, and told me to click on a link that was printed in blue on the screen. I clicked on it, and almost fell off the chair. She collapsed into a mess of tears and giggles and snot at my reaction. A flashing monster face had popped up on the screen with a big unsettling grin, and the volume on full blast had produced a high-pitched screaming sound. I had been tricked. I had fallen for the classic monster pop-up. Scowling, I returned to my room, informing her she was a bloody idiot on my way. I decided to have an early night, and at half twelve I turned off the light and settled into bed.

The rain was absolutely thundering.

It was no longer "Ah for God-sake, typical Irish weather," It was now "Jesus Christ, I don't want to die tonight,". It was genuinely frightening. I thought my house was going to come down, the rain was absolutely hammering on the roof, and then it turned to hail, spitting at my window with sharp clicks and clacks. I looked at my alarm clock, and I got a small shock. It was a quarter past three in the morning, I had been lying awake listening to the rain for nearly three hours. And then, it reached a new level.

Suddenly, my whole room lit up with a blinding light.

What the fuck was that, I thought, and I was answered when thunder boomed and shook the house. It was right overhead. In Ireland we get rain, but not thunder and lightning. Our climate isn't humid enough for it to really take place. When my room lit up with another flash, I realized that this was no longer an annoying rainy spell, it was an apocalyptic thunder storm. Usually, I love thunder and lightning, but as the lighting flashed, my brain decided to remind me of something that I really didn't need to be reminded of. You can nearly guess, yes indeed, my monstrous friend that my sister had so kindly introduced to me on the internet only hours before.

Now every time the lightning flashed, I saw the monster's face, and I knew then that sleep wouldn't come easily tonight. Time seemed to fly by at immense speed. I checked my phone beside me, it was now half four. Then, something happened that I couldn't make sense of at first. My alarm clock plugged in beside me made a popping sound that made me jump, and the fire alarm in the hall beeped. All at the same time, a chorus of car alarms sounded from outside. I lay there in a cold sweat, clutching the bed-sheets, accepting the fact that the world was ending. With bravery I now don't understand how I managed to have, I stood up in total darkness and walked to the window, peeking outside onto the street. The road was now a small, fast-moving river, and there was something else. I couldn't really put my finger on it. Then it hit me.

The street lights.

They were all off. And gradually the cogs began to click together and wind slowly in my tired mind, the world was not ending, the electricity had just been cut off. I suddenly felt a surge of rage at my sister for showing me that bloody video, out of all the nights she could have showed me, it had to be the one with apocalyptic storm and the electricity shortage. As I was standing by the window, half bloody four in the morning, my bedroom door opened with a bang. I had thought everyone in the house was asleep, and I assumed I was being visited by a demon coming to kill me. Before I could scream, the visitor began to talk, in a familiar girly voice. I could only see her outline, but I knew it was my sister.

"I can't get to sleep!" she whispered, and the memory of the flashing demon hung heavily in the air between us, surrounded by the sound of the thundering rain.

We then fell into a giggling mess, and we hid under my bed covers, our shield from the demons and thunder and rain. Then my door opened again, and we both screamed, more in giddy hysterics then horror. It was my dad.

"Would ye shut up, I have to drive to work in three hours!" he hissed.

"The world's ending!" I laughed hysterically.

"Got to sleep! And what the feck are you doing here? (Directed at my sister). Get to bed, both of ye!" With that, he retreated back to his own room, pausing to unsuccessfully fix the beeping fire alarm. He cursed and gave up.

After about a half an hour of helpless over-tired, hyper giggling, my sister went back to her own room, leaving me at the mercy of my annoying imagination which enjoyed flashing demonic pictures at me. After another bizarre time-warp, I glanced at my phone.

7:00am.

Even though I hadn't slept a wink, I felt like running a mile and taking off all my clothes. I was sweating with heat, and bursting with energy, from lack of energy. It was horrible. If you have ever had this horrible-night's-sleep experience, you'll know what I mean.

I lay in bed until twelve in the afternoon, trying to get to sleep but instead I lay twitching and having spasms of energy. The rain was still hammering outside. Then, maybe because God was feeling a bit sorry for me, the alarm clock made a jumpy popping sound again and my lamp flashed on. The electricity had returned! I then got a text from my friend.

"Check Facebook,"

I did. On my newsfeed were pictures of the storm's damage. Ireland was truly battered. There were pictures of cars bobbing like plastic bottles down the main roads of towns, which had been transformed into a muddy river. It was like Venice, except horrible. Yes, Ireland has shite weather, but the conditions we experienced last night were something else. And after all this, I was completely exhausted, but I simply can't sleep in the daytime. It's like this 'thing' I have. So when my mum returned home from work at four, I was expecting a hell of a lot of sympathy.

"Mum, I had the worst night's sleep of my life last night. Actually, I didn't sleep at all. I feel sick," I moaned.

"Sure you've been in bed all day," she retorted, not even glancing at me.

"That's the point, I can't get back to sleep, even though I tried,"

She then turned to me, hands on hips, lower lip sticking out, standing there like a petulant child.

"Well, I had to drive your younger brother to school and I've been working all day and I had to do the groceries, I'm the one that's tired,"

I couldn't believe it. Instead of "Aw, my poor baby, let me make you a nice cup of soup" she was turning this into a competition. She had slept like a baby though the whole night, I hadn't slept since the previous night, and even then, not very well. To add insult to injury, she ordered me to empty the dishwasher.

"Everyone needs to help out in this house," she sang.

The most annoying phrase of all time. Too tired to protest, I reluctantly emptied it, making sure to bang the plates and scrape the glasses. I'll admit, in my head I was saying Please, please faint just to show her how tired I was, but I'm not the fainting type.

So here I am, 9:00pm, and I'm bloody exhausted. Letting my rant free on mibba. I'm looking out the window now.

It's still fucking raining.