My traumatic thunder experience...

Hello everyone, what with the hot weather right now in the UK, I thought I'd talk about thunderstorms.
This morning I had to get the bus home from my boyfriends which takes about 40 minutes, but I put it off for a bit until the rumbling skies had passed....
BECAUSE I HATE THUNDER!

My fear of thunder stems from a pretty traumatic experience I had as a child.
When I was about 5 or 6 we stayed at this very pretty seaside town in the south of Kent called Margate.

^Margate's beachfront

The hotel we stayed at was actually kind of creepy as it had mannequins everywhere, even in the lift I think. It was on the seafront, and outside the front of the hotel was some metal grating, which is the reason I have a phobia of thunder....

The holiday itself was quite nice, and on the second to last night we were all in bed, and outside there was a thunderstorm. I don't remember what time it was, but at one point the fire alarm started going off.
My mum got her 3 kids up (me included) and we started to trundle down the corridor in an orderly fashion, when my dad suddenly announced he needed to turn back as he'd forgotten his car keys.
Back then I was a total daddy's girl, and didn't want him to go back into the room as at this point we genuinely thought the hotel was on fire. However he went back anyway.

The next thing is a memory that's stuck in my mind ever since, despite me being so young at the time. My mum was debating going down a metal fire escape with three children (all 10 and under) in the middle of a massive thunderstorm, but if we stayed inside we would've been burnt alive. Other families were standing in the corridor, and everyone was terrified.

Despite being only about 5 I remember the feeling of terror in the air to this day.

Then, thankfully, a member of staff appeared and told us not to go down the fire escape, but that lightning had stuck the metal on the front of the hotel and had short circuited the system in the hotel, meaning the fire alarm went off when some fuses burnt or something.

We were told to go back to our room, and whilst everyone else got back to sleep I remember sitting on the floor with my brother waiting for the storm to pass. We cut our holiday short and went home that morning, as us 3 kids were too scared to stay another night, and I think my parents were relieved to go as well.

Flash forward a few years to my last year of primary school, and there was a thunderstorm on the last day of year 5. I hadnt really experienced one away from my family before, and this lead to a very upsetting experience and I was sent home early as I kept freaking out over the rumbling clouds.

I spent the next few years being in fear of them; hiding under duvets and blocking it out with music.

On my prom night, there was a massive, beautiful storm. I say beautiful as this was when my friend made me dance in the rain with her, whilst all our friends were playing video games inside. When the rain passed and there was still lightning, we sat out and watched it crackle across the sky, and it was actually enjoyable. However, the next week I was back to blaring music and drowning out the sound.

Last year, I tagged along with my now ex-boyfriend's family holiday in southern France, and joined halfway through. The night before I flew out he said there was an amazingly huge storm, however this messed up their phone signal, making contacting him once I landed awkward! Luckily there were no storms the week I was there....

^Cajarc, France, where we were on holiday

Thank you so much for reading this! If you enjoyed my storm story, please upvote and follow me