We were very lucky a week ago.  A couple of hail storms passed through our property at Dalveen.  It makes a change from our normal weather pattern of misty rain, light rain, heavy rain and torrential downpours intermingled with lots and lots of very dry days.  The storms crossed our path on Sunday 9th December.  The first storm was accompanied by lots of thunder and lightning with pea sized hail stones falling for about 10 minutes.  About 40 minutes later the second hail storm came through - this time there was no thunder or lightning.  Just a little bit of rain for about 3 minutes and then the hail came pelting down for about 10 minutes.  This time the hail was the size of marbles.  The noise as these stones bounced off the old corrugated iron roof was deafening.  We were most impressed and at one stage it looked like we might get a complete covering of hail on the ground, but sadly it wasn't to be.  Tilly went a little crazy during and after the storm.  She's a great fan of ice as it is and always wants an ice cube if I'm getting any from the refrigerator.  She saw these hail stones as manna from heaven.  During the pea sized hail storm she ventured out onto the grass to collect a few.  She was shocked when they kept pelting down onto her and jumped back onto the verandah and the partial shelter offered there.  The look she gave Catherine and I was one of complete disbelief.  I'm sure she thought we were pelting her with the hail stones whenever she ventured out onto the grass.  When the second storm passed through we brought her inside as I'm sure the larger hail stones would have done considerable damage to her if she'd gone out onto the grass.
 

Marble sized hail pelting down

The storm is over and this is the result - not quite complete coverage

Tilly's excited

These ones were still there about 3 days later

Why are my feet so cold?

Tilly eating all the hail stones that landed on the verandah

When the sun came out the mist started rising as the hail melted