Before the storm

First thing this morning, the Met Office forecast was for sunshine all day, so MrM and I planned an early evening walk from College Valley, with a picnic in the hillfort on the top of Sinkside Hill whist admiring the views.

But the forecast changed during the day, predicting a high chance of thunderstorms later in the evening. We set off anyway, thinking that we'd be up and down the hill long before the bad weather arrived. Wrong! Sunny and fine in Wooler, but when we arrived at the car park in the valley, 7 miles away, the first thunder cloud was forming. By the time we'd walked up the valley to the bottom of the hill, about a mile, the sky looked decidedly ominous. Hmmm! Unanimous decision to save Sinkside Hill and its views for another day, and we walked back to the car. We ate our picnic watching the clouds clagging down over the hills as thunder rumbled around.

The heavens opened as we arrived home...