08 May 2009

Here I sit, beneath the cloud...

"I sit here moving my fingers on the computer keys, burning up the ATP. I am an inferno. A tiny child of the sun."

Those lines are taken from Unreal Nature's 8·31 minutes, three days ago – mostly because they are so beautiful that I wanted an excuse to quote them. Note that they are grounded in Sunshine Yellow (not to be confused with food additive E110...) rather than my usual Growlery Green.

Today is also bathed in sunshine yellow, here, as I work from home for the day. So, having done a good three productive hours and stopped for a break, I thought I would amble around to the CoOp and pick up a loaf of bread.

There is an old English country saying: "Ne'er cast a clout 'til May be out". This used to puzzle me as a child, since the word clout now means a blow (as in "I gave him a clout round the ear for his impudence"), but in older usage it meant a cloth or a coat ... so the saying, roughly translated, is "Never leave your coat at home until after the end of May".

Cloutless, I set off up the road. About a hundred metres from home, the sunshine disappeared and a huge great nimbus cloud filled the sky out over the bay. A stiff icy wind whistled up out of nowhere, carrying a heavy load of hailstones at 45 degrees. I pulled up the hood of my sweatshirt and took shelter against a wall, waiting for it to blow over ... but it didn't. I decided to make a run for the CoOp ... but after another twenty metres the hail gave way to driving rain. Home was still much closer than the CoOp so, drenched to the skin, I turned back.

And the moral is ... listen to old saws, and carry your clout with you even on the shortest trip on the loveliest of May days.

It's now sunny again. The wind has gone, the rain evaporated, the cloud disappeared from a wall to wall blue sky.

I sit here moving my fingers on the computer keys, burning up the ATP. I am a puddle. A tiny child of the rain.

1 comment:

Julie Heyward said...

[laughing]

It's been raining here for eight days. Day before yesterday, I really wanted to go for a hike. I checked the current radar map and saw a massive yellow (indicating heavy rain) blob about two counties over and figured I had a little more than half an hour of the current light drizzle. So I hopped into my hiking gear, ran out the door and went speeding up the nearest mountain. I had gotten almost to the top when I heard the rain coming. In the mountains, you can hear it -- it's like the sound of a huge incoming wave. I said a number of blasphemous things but held to my course (I had on rain gear). At the height of the downpour (no hail and it was wasn't cold), out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of one of the Jack Russell Terriers running past me with an enormous bone, completely oblivious to the deluge. She carried it all the way home. (I'm not sure what the point in this story is, but I've typed it all out, so here it is.)