Due to downing a pint of water before bedtime, my bladder decided that at 3:30am on Friday it needed to wake me up and for me to go to the loo. That then resulted in my brain deciding to think about all the things that it thought that I needed to sort out. Which of course resulted in me picking up my phone.

Now what I don’t have on my phone is my work e-mail. I made a conscious decision that I didn’t want my work email on my phone. I have compromised and put MS TEAMS on it, which has been helpful when moving round a 7 storey building but I don’t look at it in the evenings or weekends.

Shortly after I pick up my phone, I look at my private emails. I see I have an email from school to me as a parent, sent late last night, entitled Preparations for Severe Weather.

When we went to bed last night, the rain was heavy, and there was thunder, and still at 4am the rain is still falling. I also see that I have this alert sent at 22:37 – sent long after Martin and I have gone to bed.

A red warning in force before 6:30am according to the school letter means that school is closed. At 4:08am, as I compile the start of the blog… I wonder whether the red warning is still in force… and I have possibly made the cardinal mistake of leaving my laptop in school.

Time will tell …. Now to see if I can switch off again and get 2 hours more sleep.

…

Update 6:34am

Sleep did happen again, and at 6am I woke up to find Martin had gone out for a run. (He says it was a lovely temperature) I was staying in bed until we found out if school was cancelled. Sure enough at 6:21am the notice came through. School is online once more.

The sea level is high and the rain relentless.

And a further postscript at midday – it is still raining and it is the worst rain experienced in Shenzhen since 1952 when records began. This is from the tail end of Typhoon Haikui and so far in a 12 hour period 465.5mm of rain has fallen. I have just been out to get milk and our lunch… my welly boots and Mary Quant poncho have been unleashed.