The summer of 2012 was well-known for its extensive and very heavy rain storms. A decision was made to go ahead with the Gala, despite the promise of bad weather. A sequence of UK Met Office rain radar images shows how lucky we were and can be viewed by clicking on the button below. Each image has the time shown in the top right corner. The Village Hall is marked by the pin in the red circle.

We should have been hit at about 1315 by the first batch of torrential rain, but this passed just to the east of us. By 1400, another burst was heading straight towards us, but at 1415 this split into two torrential downpours, which passed just on either side of us at 1430. At this stage, the ring of storms is some 70 miles long and we are in the only gap, which was about a mile wide. At 1445, the storm which would finally hit us has just left Newark and reaches us at about 1545. By 1600, we are under its heaviest part which is at the maximum rain rate on the Met Office scale.