Torrential thoughs

As I wandered along the Thames towards Christ Church meadow, in the ever so light drizzle, which barely merited putting the hood on my jacket up (even if I did), I reflected that nature can look very pretty in the rain. The sky may be grey, but the grass is greener than ever. Oxford, which I usually prefer sunny, actually looks quite nice when it’s wet too. I had hugged my special tree and was heading for the gate when the rain suddenly changed.

Gone was the drizzle. Replaced by serious rain. The kind of rain which means business. Rain which looks you in the face and says “you talkin’ to me? Well, you about to get wet.”. For a second or so I considered hiding underneath a tree for a while. Then I came to my senses, took my hood off and stared right back at the rain.

Yes, I smiled at the leaden sky, started playing in the puddles and reaffirmed my belief that hiding from the rain is for wimps, the English, and spiders – and realised that this particular brand of torrential downpour really only allows for hiding… and embracing. As I AM in England, and all people in the near vicinity were equipped with higher sensibilities as well as umbrellas, I was quite alone in enjoying the sensation of being completely and utterly soaked.

Merton street was delightfully deserted and flooded and I decided to go for a little extended stroll up the High, ending up outside Hertford – again completely alone. Quite remarkable, at 7 pm on a Tuesday night in Oxford. More abandoned than at midnight; Radcliffe Camera mine to behold in peace.

In short, I had a grand old time and immensely relished the warmth of being enclosed in summer (for I decided that that was what it was) rain, coming at me from all directions. Cheerfully I headed towards High street again, homeward bound this time, and then the inevitable happened.

The rain, unforgivably, stopped. Just as being in torrential rain is curiously warm, being out of it, but still soaked, is curiously cold. Suddenly, people emerged from underneath doorways and umbrellas and I was no longer the only person on the street. I was, however, the only one who resembled a drenched cat. So I scurried home, realised that it must be the humiliation AFTER the rain that makes people hide from it and quickly jumped in the shower (shooing away the spider who was hiding from the rain in it, the silly bastard). But will I play in the rain again? You bet your ass.