JUST WALKIN' IN THE RAIN...?

 

Outside, it's a wet and windy day. The rain lashes the streets with
unrelenting fervour as, from my window, I observe a few bedraggled
passersby scurry for shelter or in pursuit of some purpose know only
to themselves. The sky is grey and ominous, clouds swirl overhead in
regal, grim-meined majesty, contemptuously regarding us mere
mortals as the lowly ants we undoubtedly are.

And that's the weather forecast for today.

However, cosily ensconced within the comfortable confines of my
comics covered cubbyhole, I luxuriate in the warmth emanating from
the radiator and concern myself with what pithy (no, I don't have a lisp),
profound and poignant comments I can bestow upon my eager audience,
who look to me to lighten and brighten their unbearable burden by be-
dazzling them with the wit and wisdom which so freely pours forth
from my meaningful, methodical and monumental mind. 

Oh, what lucky people you are.

When I was a

boy in Belmont,
we had an outside

'garden cellar' (as
did most of the
houses in the
street), in which
we stored coal in
one part and kept
garden tools (such
as lawnmowers
and the like) in
the other. (It was
called a cellar even
'though it wasn't underground, but apparently the term is not misapplied in
such circumstances.) On rainy days I would sit on a deckchair inside the
bigger-sized half with the door slightly ajar, reading comics and listening to
the rain pattering off the pavement and caressing the concrete roof under
which I ever-so-snugly sheltered.

Even today, I find it a supremely calming experience to sit in a car in
the rain and listen to the drops rattlling on the roof in their staccato, tinny-
sounding fashion. There is a wonderfully diverse quality to rain; when one
is out walking in it, it invigorates, it refreshes, and it cleanses. Yet, when
one takes the time to regard its presence in quiet contemplation from the
comfort of a dry haven, it also relaxes the mind and soothes the soul.

Sadly, refuge in
the garden cellar
of my youth is a
couple of houses
ago and many
years in the
past. However,
I can still seek
sanctuary in its
shadows with one
short step into the
hallowed halls of
memory. As Cicero
himself said: "Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things."

Failing that, of course, I can always go and sit in my nice new acrylic
garden shed and listen to the rain pitter-patter all around me, the door

half-open to allow me to watch it in silent awe.

******

Incidentally, the photo below was taken about twenty years ago
outside the very cellar mentioned, around twenty years after I had
moved from the house. How did I manage that, do I hear you ask?
Ah, but that's a story for another time.