CITY OF COLOUR - TUESDAY 9TH JULY - MONS

It’s a curious thing to hop on the bus after a lovely day in town, a super lunch in the sun drenched main square, and sufficient heat to believe that summer has finally arrived, to receive a notification from the weather man that says “Thunderstorm will cease in eighteen minutes”.

The sky was a bit overcast in places, but there was not a drop of rain to be seen. Perhaps it was a wrong number.

Ten minutes later we alighted from that same bus with the sky a little greyer perhaps, but still giving no sense of impending doom, and we set off on our eight minute walk back to the boat.   The bus had barely closed its door when a drop of rain the size of a cumquat landed on the concrete pavement in front of us.    

Then another.

We had just enough time to fish our umbrellas out before firehoses started blasting us from all directions, leaving us beyond wet, walking through inches of water.  Traffic stopped, we think the street lights came on, but we had to squint against the pressure of the water so can't be sure, yet on we trudged.

Precisely eighteen minutes more or less after receiving that notification, just as we were wondering how to get into the boat without filling it with water, the rain ceased. 

Fourteen millimetres in around ten minutes made us a bit homesick.  I’d managed to get the (thankfully waterproof) camera safely zipped into the backpack just in time, but such was the torrent that when it was all over, it was basting in an inch or so of water which had found it’s way through the zippers!  

Again I digress: Mons is a really nice city we think, filled with colour and interesting crannies, that could well do with further exploration.  One laneway was so colourful that all the cobbles were carefully painted in colours so vibrant that it felt like walking across a packet of Smarties.   

I can only hope that the colours haven't run!