It rained tonight . . .

 

It rained tonight, a warm fine summer rain

Making long streaks across my window pane,

And in the dark I heard the rustling leaves,

The water running in the wooden eavs.

I smelt the fragrant earth all dripping wet;

Saw the drops shine like glistening pools of sweat.

What seemed like an early summer has now turned into wind and rain and chilly temperatures. Someone at church yesterday said that summers seem to be coming earlier, being brief and then turning to rain.  There were some Americans visiting.  I was sitting next to them in Relief Society and they remarked on how lovely and green we were over here  . . .  I said, it is because of the rain.  We get a lot of rain, which is why we truly appreciate a sunny day. 

Yesterday was very showery. Instead of a torrential downpour . . . we were having that light misting, trickling sort . . . as I watched through the window I thought about the first year I lived over here in the UK.

It rained every day.  I kid you not.  Every day.  I started to think I was going to develop webbed feet if it didn't stop.  That was in the year 2000 and it was the year that they had terrible flooding down in the south of the country.  That was our "Annus Rainus," in royal speak. 

 

I almost thought that I could hear the sound

Of tiny thankful roots below the ground.

The eager drinking up of leaf and stem

As the warm moisture drifted down to them.

The drenched sweet flowers folded dim and tight,

Giving their faint sweet fragrance to the night.

I wondered what I had let myself in for, truly.  Someone had told my youngest son that he would never want to go to England, because it rained all the time there.  I had told him that just wasn't true.  I'd been over here for three weeks in the September and it only really rained for the last couple of days that I was here.  I didn't want it to be true.  I didn't want that other person to be right . . . but it was beginning to look like she was.

That was the year I discovered that people don't melt in the rain.  Back home we never went out in the rain.  Rain.  Wet.  Ugh.  Poo poo . . . you don't go out in the rain.   You sit in your livingroom looking out the window and wishing for it to stop.  Over here . . . if you didn't go out in the rain . . . you would never go anywhere!   and . . . just so long as it isn't pelting down . . . people don't melt in the rain. 

  

And even in  my sleep I seemed to feel

The quiet power of rain to bless and heal,

The peace of Nature working out her plan

Setting at naught the hurried ways of man,

For growth is slow, yet to my heart it brings

The mystery of all created things. 

~Edna Jaques, Rain at Night

That was the year I discovered that if you have nothing else to talk about over here, you can always talk about the weather, and everyone loves to talk about the weather.  It's like a favourite topic of conversation.  Even strangers at the bus stop will talk to you about the weather.  (We didn't have a car back then, and I used to spend a lot of time at bus stops.)   Everyone was always saying to me . . . "I'nt the weather 'orrible?"  Of course I would agree and then they would notice I was not from around here, and we'd be off and running.  Most people have a cousin, or an uncle or a sibling that has moved over to Canada and is living in the best part . . . completely away across the country from where I'm from, by the way.  It's not the best part.  Nova Scotia is . . . but I never bother to point that out.  Why burst their bubble . . .  besides to any Canadian, where they live is . . .  the best part of Canada.

That was the year I discovered that they love to name the years over here according to the weather.  Like . . . 1965 was the year of the "Great Drought" or 2001 was the year of the "Great Bombing," etc.  . . . 2000  was the year of the "Great Rains."    Last year was the year of "Short Summer."  

 

 Surely I jest you say.  No, I do not.  Tis one of the things I love about this beautiful country I have come to live in and call my own.  From the sky, it looks like a beautiful patchwork quilt of as many colours of green as you can imagine, every shade ever invented.  When you drive down the by ways and hi ways out in the country areas . . . it's like driving through a tunnel of green . . . moss covered tree trunks, and stone walls and fences, hedges which butt right up to the road . . . leafy green trees which meet together over your head.  When a sunny day does occur, it's the most beautiful place on earth.  There is nowhere on earth more beautiful than England on a sunny day, or at least that is my opinion and I think a lot of others would agree.

And that is all because . . . here in the UK.  It rains . . . rather a lot, and so yesterday as I watched it misting down, trickling from the eaves of the shed in the back garden, I thought . . . about how beautiful the garden was going to be this summer, with lots of flowers and green, green, green . . . and I said a little prayer hoping that it was not going to turn into a quagmire.  Perhaps this will be the year of the "Summer that Never Ended." 

 A thought to carry with you  . . . 

° * 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ •
•。★★ 。* 。
° 。 ° ˛˚˛ * _Π_____*。*˚
˚ ˛ •˛•˚ */______/~＼。˚ ˚ ˛
˚ ˛ •˛• ˚ ｜ 田田 ｜門 ★
 *Rain hath come to quench

the thirst of May.

Waterlogged meadows bow

down below a swollen sky

and smile on nature's blessings.

~unknown  •。★★ 。* 。 

 

In the English Kitchen today  . . .  Perfection Salad.  A memory from my childhood. 

Have a beautiful Monday.  Whatever it brings to your table don't forget! 

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And I do too!