What miserable weather
I've been sick for a week and this weekend, it's been pouring with crazy torrential rain. While rain is actually good for us (massively long drought), its actually pretty darn miserable. The flooding torrential rain causes is going a bit far though. We only just want some rain, don't give us a whole ocean. Please.
Times like this, "raining cats and dogs" don't quite cut it. It's more like raining "bulls and rhinos", to be honest. It's when I woke up this morning to the sound of crashing water that I realised... I have a problem with rain. Usually I'm quite calm and enjoy listening to rain hitting the ground, the sound of water sloshing around. But when I have to go outside in it... Good lord, someone stab me in the head so I don't have to leave the building. That cold wind that blows and bites at your skin and your eyes. That water makes your hair cling to your face in stringy clumps. Then, as if its not enough, that water seeps down your back as well as through your clothes. Fuck. Then for the rest of the day, you're soaking and you smell of rain drying.
Except that's if you're lucky. Because if you live here, chances are, you won't bother with an umbrella because if you do, you find yourself protecting the umbrella more than it protecting you. The winds can get so strong and come from weird directions. Rain doesn't fall down straight here, (as I've discovered falling down in straight and non intrusive ways actually exists outside of this city (or country?!). Discovered it when I went to Japan back in 2006. I actually stood there, on the balcony and stared at the rain ink awe. Here, rain falls at an angle. So no matter how you hold your umbrella, you'd probably still get wet one way or another to some degree.
And the puddles. The puddles on the ground, on the road... The flooding! Your shoes just get wet, water seeps through and through until it hits between the soles of your feet and the bottom of your socks. No wonder so many people here walk around in sandals or jandals.
The weather changes often. It just does. You can experience four seasons in one day - in five minutes even - and so you actually have to think about what to wear and what to bring before you leave the house. Usually it's ok if you drive a car - you can shove an entire closet in the trunk. It sucks when you leave in the early hours of dawn and its freezing to the bone but you know for sure it's going to get warmer and warmer so you can't really wear thermals just yet. Or it's really hot so you don't bring a jacket but then it suddenly stars raining and a chill runs over the region and fuck it all, it's hailing. What a fucking pain in the arse. You just have to stand and shiver at the bus stop, waiting for a bus that promises to come on that stupid and unreliable time board but that bus never comes. So you can only curse and curse and grit your teeth in frustration because the board promises the bus is coming in five minutes even though its been saying that for the past hour so you don't dare move just in case the bus comes as soon as you leave in a rage.
Fuck this weather. Fuck public transport in this weather. Thank god I can drive.