A dark and stormy night

Thinking that we might be accumulating a reasonable score, I looked up the ten plagues of Egypt - the origin myth of Jewish people, in which the god of the Jews hits back at the oppressor who holds them as enslaved captives in the foreign land

I'm disappointed to find that hail, fire and storm - all of which have now afflicted our corner of the village recently - are counted as just one of them, which doesn't really seem fair. A second plague is three days of total darkness. Only three! We have got that one with three gold stars and a merit this November

A river (Nile) being turned to blood is another one. Given the ferocity with which the storm water is flooding off the fields above us, on to the brewery car park and on into the brewery buildings (presumably the cellars) in the evening darkness, I think we can assume the water in the stream will be a fairly rusty brown in the morning, if not actually full crimson. A blood-red fire engine, due to join a convoy to Ukraine next month, was being put to use beside these buildings, pumping the water into the channel

I haven't seen or heard of a plague of frogs, but it's a fair bet there will be a few washed along, willingly or unwillingly, by the torrents that are flowing all around us

So maybe 3.5 out of 10, not really a pass - it would be hard to claim we have suffered from lice, wild animals attacking our livestock, pestilence (or can I count the infection of my bees?), boils or locusts. If you are counting, that's nine. The tenth is too macabre to treat as a joke or to dwell on - the overnight death of all firstborn sons. The violence of much religious imagery is troubling

The further south we came, the gloomier and wetter the world became. The last three kilometers required some fairly assertive (against the elements) and evasive driving, but we made it. I think the groom must have rescued the horses from their inundated land and they are now steaming in their temporary home. It's a bit early to extend the Jewish mythology into stables and mangers with stars shining above them - and, in truth, the 'stars' are droplets on the branches, reflecting light from the arc-lamps that are illuminating the flood alleviation efforts. Furthermore, I wouldn't want to be accused of purple prose