It never rains but......

Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you are going to get! Forrest Gump was a great philosopher eh? So, you plan a Latin American evening in the middle of the best heat wave of the summer and you get..... the great flood of Malta!

Before I get on to the main story, let me at least say that the Latin American evening was good fun - the musician was fabulous, the food and drink great and those friends and customers who braved the early weather and then found themselves temporarily stranded here, had a really nice time! There is, of course, enough food left to feed a Mexican army but somehow we will at least struggle through the remaining Rum Punch! And I do like avocados.

The rain began as usual a bit on and off and then came a rather threatening black cloud. Czaba, the musician, carried on for a while under the gazebo and the customers sat under the umbrellas and all seemed Okish. Then about 9.00pm the rain started to get heavier. To protect his equipment, Czaba decided to move inside and most of the audience came with him (although some continued, in a very English manner, to eat and drink outside). Even then we thought it was just an ordinary bit of 'Gewitter' - until about 30 miutes later the wind started to get up the rain doubled and more in strength and suddenly the world went mad! The umbellas and the gazebo flew, a river started flowing down the Maltaberg and, after a few vain attempts by some of the guys to rescue what they could, the rest of us were trapped in the restaurant for about an hour while the elements took over. The town's emergency sirens went off at about 11.30, so we knew things were getting serious.
When it finally calmed down enough for people to go home, Andrea, Czaba, Pauline, Elfriede, John and I cleared up the restaurant and kitchen and decided we couldn't do much outside till the morning. Andrea and I went over to the flat to collect some stuff she had left there and noticed that the lights had tripped. John went upstairs to the fusebox to turn them back on and I went in in darkness - immediately noticing there was water on the floor in the entrance. Bugger, I thought, the rain has got in! Ha! A bit of an understatement! When the lights went on and we realised that the whole flat was under about 2-3 centimetres of water we were just stunned. The water had cascaded down the entrance, pushed open the doors, swept the doormat 10 metres into the room and spread out into the workshop and the laundry on either side. What a mess! It doesn't sound much water, but it certainly made its presence felt!

So instead or crashing out after a very long day, we spent the next hour raising what furniture we could out of the water, moving other things and finally taking what we needed up to a hotel room (thankfully we don't have another full week until the 7th September!) and fell into bed about 2.30. The storm carried on all night, the emergency sirens went off again about 4.30 and no-one (apart from one of our biker guets who slept through the whole thing!) got much sleep!

The weather hadn't improved much next morning - we got breakfast for our few guests but there was no way the guys were going anywhere on their bikes. which was a blessing for us, because, having established that our insurance would cover things, we were told to get on with clearing up and, bless them, Grahame and Nick, were golden - helped us clear the flat, re-stack everything in the other cellar, dry out what we could, throw out what we couldn't etc etc. They were just fabulous! We were also consoled greatly by our friends Monika and Achim who turned up ready to offer us a temporary home in their guest suite if need be - don't think we will need to but it was lovely of them to offer!

Happily very little apart from the carpet and the kitchen cabinet were totalled. Several things need to get properly cleaned, but most of it is salvageable. And as with every cloud there is also a small silver lining, as we will be able to install the pipes for the radiators we planned to put in before winter, before the furniture goes back in! Our biggest problem is getting it back into use before the 7th, but friends tell us that insurance claims here go through very quickly so we are hoping that, together with the dozens of photos we took, the insurance visit tomorrow will be enough to allow us to go ahead and get a new carpet down as soon as poss. In the meantime we are back in Room 11, and at least after after months of only showers, we can again have a bath!

Thanks to all those who responded to my Facebook photo with messages of support - as you can see all is reasonably well and we have survived yet another adventure in Austria! Take care! R & J