Rain rain

One of the things I miss about England, as well as fish and chips- well it has to be the rain.  Seriously.  Maybe this is in the same way as my Postman Pat warped view of UK life.  But that British weather....where you can stay in for days on end unless you really need to go out for something.....where a holiday can be wrecked if the weather isn't on your side.....where you can smell the 'damp dog' smell in shops where their carpets are wet from the rain and the store heaters....yes all of that and more - I sort of miss it.

When we lived in California the weather was beautiful.  Occasionally it rained.  Very very occasionally - and when it did it made the news headlines as basically there were so many accidents on the roads as people didn't realise they had to alter their driving patterns to accommodate braking distances etc.  But I missed the changes in season and the weather  it just seemed too nice.  It was like we were always on holiday....and yes, we took it for granted.  Admittedly it was quite novel to be able to assume that weather would never really be an issue - for a party, for a date - certainly we had no back up plan when we got married and the reception was outside.  Didn't need to.

Well here in Colorado we do have the 4 distinct seasons but rain is quite rare. Hail is probably more usual than rain even.  So when you wake up and here a pitter patter of rain on the roof - as we did this morning, it is actually quite a surprise.  The kids were in a tizzy about what to wear for school (and they only really had to walk about 4 metres to get from the car to the school door).  We found out that Mac's one 'raincoat' was about 2 sizes too small and ready to be handed down to Rory...and Rory himself kept shouting 'water, sky!' but refused to walk in the rain- insisting on being carried.

Me?  I was just dead happy. When we dropped the kids off at school/pre-school I got Rory loaded into the car and instead of starting the engine I just listened to the rain on the roof.  I think he thought I had fallen asleep or lost the plot.  It reminded me a little of dismal holidays as a child - trapped in a caravan with a tin roof - listening to endless rain and not being able to escape. 

But we drove home, taking it easy with the traffic...

There was more traffic and things were moving slower but luckily no accidents.

rain on Hampden

We stopped off at the drive thr Starbucks where everyone had the same idea as the line was pretty long...

Starbucks - rain

and then we headed home to snuggle, watch the rain and see it get brighter as the day progressed.  By the time the kids were home from school there was no trace left - it was warm enough for short sleeves again and playing in the garden but at least I had got my fix for a while....