...Yes, that is a duck...
It has been raining. A lot. For days actually, so many that some record for the most days of rain in a row set in the 1930s was broken.
Normally I quite like rain. I like to run in it and then come home and change into nice warm, dry clothes. I like donning wellies and sploshing about or being smug under an umbrella while trying not to poke anyone's eye out. I don't, as it turns out, like it all that much when it goes on for 17 days without a day off. Nothing dries properly, the soft furnishings all feel positively soggy, the TV crackles when you first switch it on because of all the moisture trapped in its works and you're constantly damp because all the towels are still wet and your clothes have the kind of dampness which is probably a great breeding ground for mildew.
Not only is there this personal sensation of general discomfort but you can't go out. The most I had been outside until yesterday was running from Amanda's car to the library - a whopping 200m. Drainage here is rubbish, as beautifully demonstrated by the duck setting up camp in a puddle so big that it (a duck whom, I would have thought, would have a great deal of experience of bodies of water) has mistaken it for a pond. Until this morning I hadn't been able to run, cycle or even walk outside as trying to move through Norman under your own steam in the rain involves rather more wading than I think is necessary unless you're on one of those outward bounds courses or fishing and actually I'm not even sure that either of those are necessary to begin with! I hadn't even managed really to get to the gym to run as everytime I thought it might be alright to nip out a dark cloud appeared on the horizon looking ready to release raindrops so large that just one would be enough to wash your hair clean of shampoo with and probably hurt a bit in the process. Consequently I've probably been a bit of a nightmare and was even reduced on day 17 to alternating stamping my feet, waving my fist and screaming in frustration at the rain.
Fortunately we've been given a bit of reprieve, a strange gold disc appeared in the sky yesterday afternoon. Amanda and I were frightened but then grew to love its strange warmth and the odd sensation of being dry that it afforded us. I'm not sure how long this is going to last, or whether the giant cloud is going to swing back around but for now I'm happy and, until the puddle dries out, so is that duck.
n the days to my flight. I have never had an Advent Calendar so fancy. It pops up with a little house and then behind each door is a new character to add to the scene. I shall have to put it away when we're not home so that the cats don't eat it but I don't care. It's the best advent calendar I have ever, ever had.
