Trying to find the positive side to a rainy summer is not easy. Photo / Paul Taylor
Trying to find the positive side to a rainy summer is not easy. Photo / Paul Taylor
Is there a point at which excessive rain ceases to be glorified as ‘good for the garden’?
Many of my plants (lavender, marigolds, sunflowers) are in pots, and during a normal summer, require daily watering or they will die. I don’t think I’ve had to water them for weeks. Isthat a positive? No.
I certainly haven’t had to devote any hose time to the roses out in the wider garden. Nature has taken care of those needs. A positive? No.
Because I have hardly been outside, I haven’t had to take the usual slip, slap, slop precautions to protect my skin from the harsh UV rays. Is that a positive? No.
I’m not really a tent person but, if over the holiday period I had been overcome by an overwhelming desire to set up camp, I wouldn’t have done it. I would have taken my cue from the Coromandel campers who pulled up their pegs and took their damp canvas homes to relative safety.
And spare a thought for parents who may have had to find indoor pursuits for their children. Yes, of course they would have been happy gazing at screens, but even that can pretty soon lose its gloss, and other activities would soon have been required.
Out might have come Monopoly, Ludo, Backgammon, Scrabble and countless modern games I’ve never heard of. Even the pick-up-sticks might have been dusted off. Or art materials.
Parent (feigning enthusiasm): “Let’s see who can draw or paint the best rainy weather picture. Don’t rush. You’ve got days, possibly weeks.”
Wyn Drabble suggests pacing your chocolate nosh at Christmas. Photo / NZME
Child: “This sux!”
Rainy weather might be a perfect time to stay indoors and expand your vocabulary. Let’s start with the word ‘pluviophile’, which means a person who loves rain. ‘Pluvial’ means characterised by heavy rainfall or relating to rain.
Okay, that wasn’t as much fun as I had hoped, so what about well-known expressions connected with rain? There are plenty to choose from:
It never rains but it pours (It comes boots and all).
Right as rain (Sweet as).
Come rain or shine (Whatever!).
Take a rain check (Maybe later).
It’s raining cats and dogs (It’s fair hosing down).
Before we become totally negative, let’s remember something important: without rain, most of our planet would be like a desert, so let’s be thankful and stop the complaining. Rain keeps everything green and fresh, and gives little kids something to splash around in with their gummies on.
It’s time to remember the Japanese proverb, “If every day were a sunny day, who would not wish for rain?” Let’s not rain on our own parade.
Besides, there are some interesting facts about rain (which I know thanks to Reader’s Digest).
The least rainy place on Earth is not a desert, but Antarctica, which receives only 6.5 inches of rain (or snow) per annum.
In Botswana, the name of the currency unit translates to ‘rain’, suggesting how valuable precipitation is in that sub-Saharan region.
Fossil evidence of rain dates back 2.7 billion years. You won’t be able to mark that on your calendar!
Rain produces a pleasant aroma after falling because of a molecule called geosmin, but please don’t ask me to explain how it works.
In some hot, dry climates, rain can evaporate before reaching the ground - not happy news for the parched plants below which, if they had eyes, could see it coming (but not arriving).
In 2018, a Hawaiian town recorded 49.69 inches of rain in one day. That’s damp!
And to close, let’s cross to the weatherman to see if there is brighter news.
