After an extremely hot day, a thunderstorm has rolled in over my house.

We have waited in the suffocating heat all day for this storm and now it is here. I lie in a hammock on my deck reading A Portrait of a Lady, listening to the different rhythms of the night: a chorus of courting frogs croak by the pond, the rain falls in soothing pitter-patters on the roof and I wait for it to build to a pouring crescendo while the thunder rolls and booms like loose skin on a big bass drum closer and closer, until it is directly overhead.

I read my book by the light of my flickering candle. The white light is dulled to insignificance in comparison to the brilliant blue flashes the lightning casts across the sky. I see the sky as an ocean, vast and wild, yet comforting in its unfathomable immensity. I am sure I see frothing white water lick at the sides of the lightning, like a line being thrown out and disrupting the smooth surface of the water.

I smell the freshness of the rain as all is being washed clean. I breathe deeply and drink it in.
I love it. The sounds, the sights, the smells, for this is summer in Australia, the land of incredible heat and summer rains.