nice weather for ducks

[freckles_and_doubt]

Things I Like About Heavy Winter Rainstorms, such as the all-day deluge we had for most of yesterday:

• Puddles! Huge puddles all over Cape Town, mostly on the sides of the roads, so you can drive through them with that satisfying spray of water (having first, of course, checked that there are no pedestrians within splash range, because I may like jumping in puddles, but I'm a nice person, really).
• Walking in the rain with my big black umbrella, with water going "splat!" from the dripping trees.
• Walking in the rain without my big black umbrella, because it makes me feel so alive to get thoroughly drenched. Although Granny Weatherwax is right, mark you: if you relax and enjoy it instead of walking all hunched up, you don't get nearly as wet. I have to admit, though, that striding madly through the rain with a huge, demented grin on my face gets me some very odd looks from the more conventionally rain-phobic.
• Damp students. They get cute spiky hair and that mournful look, like soaked puppies.
• Happy Egyptian geese. Yesterday afternoon there was one honking ecstatically and paddling joyously around the young lake that used to be a fairway on Mowbray Golf Course.
• Half-waking in the middle of the night to hear the drum of rain on the roof.
• Discovering a new and enthusiastic leak in the kitchen ceiling, and the happy little thrill of realisation that it's the Evil Landlord's problem, not mine.

I am forced to the conclusion that somewhere deep in my psyche there's a small, unrepentant bit that's eternally about 12 years old.

Put Mother on the plane to the UK yesterday, which was sad. During her month's stay she has made three sets of curtains and upholstered one chair, as well as having an epic wrestle with two separate dentists. She's back in December to meet her new grandchild. (My sister's baby, I hasten to add, lest any distant and ill-informed readers should feel the need to faint in shock).

Must now go and dissect William Gibson with my third-years. Heigh-ho.

Comments

[pinkthulhu.livejournal.com]

It sounds fantastic. The rain here is never quite as formidable, impressive, solid even, as the rain over there.

[(Anonymous)]

Interesting, for a country thought of as so damp. The rain was certainly very solid here yesterday. The cats and I were watching in alarm as an enormous puddle slowly crept closer to the back door. The cats had their pyjamas all packed and were suggesting evacuation.

wolverine_nun

Damp, but not WET

[(Anonymous)]

I once turned up at work, in London, on a typically "rainy" day - I wasn't even bothering with a brolly. Someone dashed into the lift with me, shaking himself and brolly like a wet dog, and remarked, "Gosh, it's really pissing down, isn't it?" They just have no clue.

I've mentioned elsewhere that London, Cape Town and Joburg apparently get about the same amount of annual rainfall. It's just that it comes in very different ways - vague, perpetual dampness in London, down the spectrum to tempestuous but infrequent downpours in Joburg. The latter being of course the least ecologically useful, since the water just runs off baked earth.

So this post made me very homesick. But then, most things do these days.

robynn

ps. One of my own cats would have been delighted by that huge puddle. She's one of those weird hydrophile felines. Absolutely loves going out to play in the rain.

[(Anonymous)]

Damp students. They get cute spiky hair and that mournful look, like soaked puppies.


Hmmm. Deprived, you are.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Deprived of what, exactly?

Re: nice weather for ducks

[(Anonymous)]

"I am forced to the conclusion that somewhere deep in my psyche there's a small, unrepentant bit that's eternally about 12 years old."

I think if one doesn't have a small, unrepentant bit that's eternally about 12 years old, life isn't really worth living.

"During her month's stay she has made three sets of curtains and upholstered one chair, as well as having an epic wrestle with two separate dentists."

Ah, so that's where you get it from!

Cheers, Rhieinwen

Re: nice weather for ducks

[(Anonymous)]

Extemporanea likes wrestling with dentists?
:>
Thak
(What is it about this blog that gives me such vivid mental images? :>)

Re: nice weather for ducks

[(Anonymous)]

I was referring to the incredible multi-tasking and productivity skills--I cannot speak for her wrestling experiences! :-)

Cheers, Rhieinwen

Re: nice weather for ducks

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Well, the teeth presumably have something to do with heredity, too...

Wrestling, not so much. Occasional punching of bumpycat in my not too distant past.

My mother's sewing skillz are incredibly l33t, and I usually have a small queue of stuck projects for her to rescue when she visits. And she can wrangle upholstery, which I simply cannot. *visions of self backed into corner by snarling sofa*