Rain Engagement

Because rain has it’s perks too.

It is the 5th day of July today. This article is about rain. Annoyingly, it isn’t raining today, but I had already planned to write this today, so I am not going to let this atypical weather change distract me from the usual constant flow of rain. If I let the unusual spout of sunshine get the best of me, I will become too hopeful that it will stay like this, which it will not, so maybe today even more than a rainy day is the right day to write about such a thing.

Besides - weather talk is always relevant, despite what is happening in the sky as we speak. Weather is always a topical conversation to be had in British supermarket checkouts, in fact it is the most common form of small talk, so who says I can’t expand that small talk into something bigger. Whether it is more meaningful and relevant this way is yet to be decided, but one can only try.

The weather has never affected me in the way it seems to other people. I’ve seen people’s face’s so red from anger because of the rain, I’ve seen children cry, probably grown adults too. I have always been able to neglect the initial upset inside of me when I had planned outfits and activities that can only go ahead on sunny days when I wake up to the sound of rain.

I’m writing this because a couple of weeks ago my mum and I had made plans to do something one Sunday. I woke up on Sunday morning - it was raining, which seemed irrelevant to me. Just a morning observation, no more than that. I carried on with my morning — showered, got dressed, ate breakfast, brushed my teeth, the usual. Once I was ready, I pottered around to find my mum to let her know I was ready. She was in the kitchen sipping on a cup of coffee. I asked her, “What shall we do today?”, only to be looked at like our conversation the previous day never happened. In her non chalent manner, my mum looked out the window and it became clear that rain is a self inflicted obstacle on her and many other people’s lives. If you said that this infuriated me, you would be correct.

It would of course be nice for the sun to show it’s face a little more often, but we live in Britain and one can only be so hopeful before they must admit defeat. But rain, rain can be great, you know. My favourite memories usually involve rain. It’s probably the unexpectedness of it all.

I have walked barefoot for 50 minutes on my way home from work in a thunderstorm, because I had no socks on and my shoes were too slippy to walk in. I played relevant songs on my iPod to make the experience less tragic, and it was oddly enlightening. I don’t know why, it just was.

A year ago, I went to Barry Island because we had seen some glorious sunshine that week in Wales so we hopped in the car and drove there. It chucked it down the whole day, and if you’ve ever been to Barry Island, you’ll know that there aren’t many places to take shelter, unless you want to spend all of your money in arcades or on expensive ice cream. We decided on the outside beach cafe that in fairness did have shelter, but along with the rain was wind, so the shelter didn’t do much. The day ended early and we ran back to the car, getting soaked from head to toe. The hot chocolate and laughter made it worth it.

Another beach day, my housemates and I drove two hours to Pembrokeshire. It rained for the entire two hours, and for 3 hours more when we had arrived at our destination. This time, we didn’t brave the rain, well only briefly to go to the loo, but for the most part we got comfy and cosy in the car waiting for the rain to pass. We ate a lot of sharing packets of crisps and bonded in the rain always encourages you too. The only problem was that we were in two cars, so the bonding was mainly pulling faces from car window to car window, but that just brought more laughter. 5 hours later, the rain cleared and the sun appeared. Patience is a virtue.

I am not saying that rain is always a euphoric experience; rain has broken my phone, rain has ruined perfectly good shoes, but my skin has also turned purple from sunburn, so who is really the bad guy?

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