We were promised rain last Monday night, storms and rain, lightening and rain, wet stuff from the sky – hurray! Pathetic isn’t it, how excited you get about seeing rain and feeling rain and smelling rain after four months without a cloud in the sky.

I love the thunder storms and after repeated failures to photograph our starry skies to the required standard I wanted to photograph the lightening over the mountains so I set my camera up on the tripod in my bedroom and waited, finger on the trigger, as the clouds swept in from the sea and the rising wind rattled the drying leaves of the fig tree next door. A wall of cloud surrounded the valley, making the rising moon all misty and mystical and far away rumbles heralded sheet lightening out to sea. And then nothing. Nada. Bugger all. The clouds wandered off, the moon rose higher and it totally failed to rain.

I was rather grumpy about that, I had been looking forward to it. I left the camera set up at my bedroom window for a few days in the hope that the storms were just late. No such luck. But by way of a consolation prize we have been having beautiful sunsets this week and so here are a few of them, all glowy and golden and dramatic with painted clouds. September really does give the best sunsets.

Samos in the background

Painted clouds

Pomegranite sunset

• living in Kirazli,
• September in Turkey,
• sunsets Turkey,
• weather in Kusadasi