And the word of the day is "petrichor"
Thanks to Neil Gaiman and a recent episode of Dr Who, I now know that petrichor is the word for that lovely smell you get after rain on dry earth.
Today we finally had some proper heavy rain, after weeks of sunshine. I woke up to the sound of water running down the drainpipe by my bedroom window, and by the time I was eating my breakfast there was thunder as well (although no visible lightning). There has been a series of very heavy thundershowers since then. I snuck out between them to the shops and strolled about in the little park for a while. Everything smelt wonderful, a delicious combination of wet earth, leaves and flowers. I was enjoying this so much that I managed to get caught in the next shower, and ended up sheltering in the library (again - soon they will start charging me rent) for half an hour or so, before squelching home to find that my only clean trousers were outside on the terrace, even wetter than the ones I wanted to change out of. I ended up digging out a pair of winter ones that I had put away, and now I'm sitting here in them and a warm cardigan, convinced that I've got some sort of chill. Ah well, it did smell lovely...
Today we finally had some proper heavy rain, after weeks of sunshine. I woke up to the sound of water running down the drainpipe by my bedroom window, and by the time I was eating my breakfast there was thunder as well (although no visible lightning). There has been a series of very heavy thundershowers since then. I snuck out between them to the shops and strolled about in the little park for a while. Everything smelt wonderful, a delicious combination of wet earth, leaves and flowers. I was enjoying this so much that I managed to get caught in the next shower, and ended up sheltering in the library (again - soon they will start charging me rent) for half an hour or so, before squelching home to find that my only clean trousers were outside on the terrace, even wetter than the ones I wanted to change out of. I ended up digging out a pair of winter ones that I had put away, and now I'm sitting here in them and a warm cardigan, convinced that I've got some sort of chill. Ah well, it did smell lovely...