The sky grinds low. Rain pummels the canal. A thousand instant craters spluttering in and out of existence. English rain. Cold and hard. A relentless imitation of a monsoon. A thousand new miniature streams pouring into the canal.
It is a summer afternoon, yet the sky is bruised black with premature darkness. Pipes along the canal steam. Release primordial phantoms that curl and dance away along the cut.
Being English requires you to understand and embrace the country’s bi-polar weather. You learn to wake to sunshine and see all your plans for the day torn apart as the afternoon brings the November three months early. Welcome its unpredictability or it will drive you crazy.
Strangely, the harshness of sudden English rain has its compensations. Your view never dulls to the eye, because when it pours like this, everything is transformed. There is always an excuse for keeping a battered trench coat in your wardrobe. You can prove your devotion by venturing out to buy milk.
This is what I do this afternoon. Turn my collar up. Venture out into a noir film director’s wet dream. Walk the canal out of the Three Bridge Kingdom towards the sharp light of the shops. Skin tightening to armour as water needles fall on it. Bless the English rain for giving me the chance to make even grocery shopping a little note of love to Surreal Girl.
2 comments:
Ah, lovely!
Guccimuse
i remembered how much i love the rain and winter !. in my country winter is cold. dark. and dry .. it never rains. its strong enough to endure its pain . and when it rains it rains hard , for nights and days and sweeps away houses tents and small wounds from the face of earth..taking lives and wrecking homes and cutting veins of families just to feel sad and cray this rain. my rain is different than your rain. but yet both acts like dreams . once them are done you know life has not changed and every one will just keep waling by the canal of yours and the sea shore of mine.
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