angels moving the furniture

angels moving the furniture pl (plural only)

1. (humorous) An explanation for a crash of thunder.
   • 2004, Stan Monaghan, In the Wake of Maureen Reilly, page 103:

     I remember my Mother defusing our scare of summer thunder with an explanation learned from her Mother. 'Nothing to fear. Only the angels moving the furniture around in one of the many mansions,' she'd tell us.

   • 2013, Valerie Lawson, Mary Poppins, She Wrote: The Life of P. L. Travers, page 216:

     She told Camillus not to cry, it was only the angels moving the furniture in heaven. Sometimes, after the storms, she sensed that the mountains were prowling around the house, in two opposing lines, like a grand chain.

   • 2019, Dan Richards, Outpost: A Journey to the Wild Ends of the Earth:

     The corrugated iron roof made the gutted house a drum, the high hat hiss and clack of it, white noise with thunder noises off, 'the angels moving the furniture about' as my great-gran used to say.