My baby loves the rain, it seems. She reaches out and tries to grab handfuls of it in her gummy paws, legs kicking in ecstasy. She looks up to feel the splashes on her face, straining against the straps of her buggy and rendering its protective awning solely decorative. I’ve stepped out to collect the kids and it is really pelting down. What began as a downpour is now a torrent and great big stair rods are pummelling the pavement as we make the short trip home.
She takes after me, clearly. I enjoy rain and the lack of it here is one of my main problems with London. When I tell Londoners this, they act as if I’m mad, but the fact is London gets about 106 days of rain a year. In the part of the Derry-Donegal border where I grew up, the equivalent number is 242. I didn’t realise it was something I’d ever miss. I certainly don’t think I loved it as a child. Rain was so ever present in my childhood that enjoying it would have been like enjoying air, or mass, or homemade country music.
