after the rain

Wow. England win two-nil. Shopping centre ceilings coming down, flash floods, people being swept away as rivers burst their banks, rain actually falling in catchment areas so dams get topped up (about time too) and an England win. An England series win. Three wins over the Aussies on the trot. First home-soil defeat of the Aussies in a limited-overs series for 14years. And they are one-day World number one by quite a way. BRING ON THE WORLD CUP! I am sure the British press will be full of inflated expectation until the World Cup starts, but what the hell, get in there! Good work Freddie. Stand up and be counted Colingwood! Kep on nattering Nixon! Monty can field! And that Dalrymple catch. My god. England were, at last, fielding like a bastard.

I like rain. As I sat ouside of the office this morning, finishing a chapter of my book (Almost Like a Whale, an update of Darwin's On the Origin of Species. From which I have learnt hyena give birth through an appendage like a penis and it is rather painful) it was blowing a gale and raining and I realised that I miss the rain. I miss dark mornings and puddles that last all day, I miss slushy leaves and damp. When it rains in Sydney it can really rain. Heavens-open-build-an-ark rain. Then the sun comes out and ten minutes later it's like it never happened. I don't know what I prefer. I suspect I am strggling with my endless summer, coming to Aus at the end of the northern summer and the start of the southern has messed with my bio rhythms. Or something.

While I do like rain I don't like golf umbrellas. There is very little about golf that I do like. Why does the game need tidied-up nature? Dig eighteen holes in the great outdoors and have a bash. That way you can play in fileds, beaches, deserts, glaciers, forests - anywhere you like. Don't fence off and manicure vast tracts of land that everyone should be able to enjoy. Not only and exclusively (so much today is exclusive) by volvo driving tossers from Berkshire. Put up signs to warn people that balls may be encountered but don't ruin, and ban non-members, from the countryside. I digress; my gripe du jour is golf umbrellas, or rather their use in built up areas. City centres have limited pavement real estate and we need to learn to share and share alike. So stop taking up an area the size of a small family car with your corporate-sponsored I'm-better-than-you-I'm-a-selfish-wanker umbrella. How about this; if your umbrella can shelter four people you can use it as long as huddled under it with you are three of your chums from the golf club?

Ahem. The weekend came and went quietly. I had the shits (emotional, personal, bad mood shits, not physical shits) again all day Sunday. Don't really know why - hormonal maybe. Day startd well enough; I had to check some work stuff and then I got Sal breakfast in bed and then it all went Pete Tong and I grumped till mid afternoon. Sal spent her time far more productively and did a load of gardening. Expect carrots, cabbage, parsnip and other stuff...sometime. Saturday I spent in a state of semi-knackerdness that was the obvious outcome of spending all night Friday, on and off, connected to work babysitting some geek stuff.

More about Sunday and more on rain. Rumpole does not care at all about rain and puddles and thunder and storminess. We took him for a walk, he got soaked and loved it. And today, at lunchtme, I did a run over the Bridge and back and I pissed down on me. Now I'm off home to see if the house has slipped down the block into the back garden, or if my water routing efforts will have prevented a stream forming under it. Who'd have thought I'd be as excited about a bit of rain. Cor blimey.

Hmm. Roads running like rivers and a small stream under the house. Bugger.