When the rain rolled in the buckets came out. Photo / NZME
As the clouds loomed and the air filled with moisture, the usual remarks emerged between sky-watchers.
"It's the time of the year" ... "typical early spring"... "good stuff ... I can't do the lawns."
It has been very dry of late and yep, the long-range forecast talks about the threat of drought.
While the winegrowing crews won't be too concerned, the farmers will be.
So this recent delivery of rain has a silver lining I guess.
It'll dampen some of the dry landscape down and have some of us going for a leak ... I should rephrase that.
For when the heaviest of falls fall, I have to get a couple of buckets out and place them under two spots in the garage where the droplets have found a way in.
The house is fine, but at our first home about 40-odd years ago we had a leak above the front window in the living room ... just above the spot on the floor where we'd place the plastic tray with the bucket on it.
Yep ... came the time when we eventually got the roof done, but it was intriguing to watch something on telly about storms and things and hear drops of water splashing into a bucket 6m away.
Rain.
My favourite Beatles song is Rain, so I can handle it.
On that musical note, and following on from the words of Linda Hall a couple of days back (because we all have memories of this outfit), I recall a time when it was uncool to say you kind of liked some of the songs that shiny-dressed bunch of Swedes called Abba were putting out.
Oh no.
You waxed loud and lyrical about bands like the Rolling Stones and Bad Company and Status Quo, but none of that poppy glam stuff.
Turn up at a party and ask the staggering host if he had any Abba albums and you might as well have asked to be thrown out.
But we all know how it went ... because while we lightly mocked the Swedish quartet, in the back of our musical minds we did kind of like what they were doing.
We just didn't want to be vocal about it.
Their songs were catchy and brilliantly produced, and yeah, they went all out for the stage shows and TV performances.
Back in 1974, when rock bands filled my ears, I was OE-ing and found myself in Stockholm ... and outside a bar/venue where a sign upon the outside wall near the steps declared was the first place Abba had ever played ... a couple of years earlier.
Hit after hit, accolade after accolade and yep, we've got a couple of Abba albums tucked away somewhere, as I suspect half the rest of the world has.
So time marched on and so did they, on separate paths, but their legacy of music was embedded forever.
There were multimillion-dollar offers of staging a concert together again, but they shook their heads ... until now.
They appear to have returned from another planet, and have returned with a newly recorded song called Don't Shut Me Down, which is their first single to register on the British Top 20 in 40 years.
The title effectively sums it all up.
They had technicians and sci-fi chaps attach sensors and whatever to parts of their bodies that, when whizzed up by a computer for the screens, turned back the years.
I can imagine them re-recording Mamma Mia and singing "here we go again ... my my, how do we adjust this?"
It is all very strange but all rather intriguing, because the oldest original pop band with original members is back on the musical chain gang and they are doing it in a style that will only increase as this whole tech age expands.
I can see them appearing at the Mission Concert in 2022.
They'll be on a studio stage in Stockholm of course, and satellite transmitters will do the rest.
Mamma Mia!
Roger Moroney is an award-winning journalist and observer of the slightly off centre.