You wake up to a cold
room to the sound of hissing rain. The bed is warm; there is a
promise of bacon and eggs in the air. You switch the light on. Then switch the
light in the bathroom, the kitchen, living room. Wherever you commute in the house
you need the light of the bulb, it is 7.30. You have breakfast listening to the
music from 1970s and 80s on local radio smiling to very safe, politically incredibly
correct jokes. Carefully arrange the bacon in strips, eggs here, mushrooms
there, the plate looks like a PhD project of a Logistics student. The Grand
Finale of it is marked with knife and fork resting together side by side on a
dirty plate covered in egg yolk. Read
the papers and time to get out to rain. Shoulders up, neck in, you walk out. It
is wet. The rain droplets reach you a million a square inch. They are so small
they rest on your coat, you can see the cloth resisting to the soak. You see
other people walking the same way. Hands in the pockets, necks in shoulders up
a slight hunchback. You squint to see where you go and toddle of the street.
All day the water
comes on from the sky. It has one shade of grey. Light, bluish dirty white,
rainy sky grey. It stays like that all day. Finally towards the evening the
streets and bricks of the houses are covered with rain and the wetness makes
the colours darker, one shade deeper.
Days like these are
made to go to the woods. Put a nice scarf on your head, a waterproof coat, wellies
and take your dog with you. You find yourself in the narrow country lane
between the kissing gate by the hedge and the fields. You call the dog to
follow you, he runs behind and in front of you listening to your monologue of
instructions. He stops to sniff a bush, goes into some brambles, and startles a
pheasant that startles him. A wood
pigeon coos for his mate and flies out. There is a shimmer in the air on
intense shades of green. There are dark bay leaf green, fresh grass green, tiny
forget me not green, ivy green, baby
maze green, itching nettle green and other colours scattered around. Spiders have been busy with their webs,
hundreds of gleaming droplets swing delicately on one line. Far away the
mustard yellow of rape seed fields shine on you. The sheep in the fields nearby are wet clumps
of whiteness waiting for the rain to stop patiently. A horse on the hillside
yields his neck to the soggy grass wondering why he is left out here day in day
out. Cantering in a knee high wheat field is a long lost memory now. The darkness of the oak trees, the spiky
promise of conker trees, shrivelled black berries wait for you and the dog to come
closer. You stop and for a glorious moment, hear the rain falling steadily and eternally
on you, on trees, on plants, on wood pigeons and on the dog. You hear the hiss
of water. There is nothing else, only you the dog and the rain. You look around,
the whole wet countryside is so tranquil, so serene and it tastes fresh. The dog looks up to you you, and keeps closer
to keep you company in this vast greenness of the universe
When you come home you
take your wellies off and walk around with soggy left sock toe. Snuffle your
nose and sit at the kitchen table with a mug of hot tea, Garibaldi biscuits and
a tired happy dog. Life is good.
