Not as humble as it was

Goodness, how it is raining.

It has not rained here, nor presumably wherever you are, for weeks and weeks, until this evening the heavens opened.

They didn’t feel very open, actually. It felt as though the heavens had closed in, dark and threatening with sinister rolls of thunder and malevolent flashes, as if God knew perfectly well what we had all been up to in the sunshine, and was not in the least pleased about it.

Within a few minutes the raindrops were battering down with a startling savagery. Small rivers appeared everywhere, and I could not hear what my customer was saying to me because of the frantic pounding on the roof of the taxi.

Fortunately I had brought the washing in, and Mark had closed the windows at home. We have had one lightning strike in our lives, which was sufficiently intimidating for us to have invested in all sorts of electrical-goods protections, but he went round unplugging things anyway, just in case.

I am very pleased about the rain. Everything had become unspeakably dry. The gras has browned, the flowers have shed their petals, and even the trees were beginning to wither a little in the relentless arid warmth. I like hot weather very much indeed, but I had begun to worry.

We have been watering things every day. We do not like using the hose when water is beginning to be scarce, and so I have been lugging  the watering can out into the back garden for the poor thirsty blackcurrants. The rainwater tanks for the conservatory emptied long ago, and it has been troubling, although undeniably lovely if you are a person and not a rose bush.

Today’s rain should refill the garden tanks very nicely.

We worked last night, of course, indeed, we have had a very busy weekend. My parents are coming to see us next week, and so we had been making plans. I explained to Mark that they would be very sad and disappointed to see the yard filled with piles and piles of rusty junk, and so it had to go. Also, I added, they would be upset to see all of the unfinished jobs that have been gathering dust in the kitchen. There was unfinished plastering. There was a once-useful curtain rail over the door, which had ceased to be useful when the curtains caught fire and which needed to be dismantled and removed. Then there was the microwave shelf, which was painfully in need of some paint and a little welding, because it was made out of the cover of an old quarry conveyor belt, and looked like it.

Also it was on a slant, meaning that the the microwave slid off if you actually used it, making its functionality fairly minimal.

There was a huge list.

If Mark did not wish their visit to be doomed to tragic failure, I assured him, all of these things needed sorting out, without delay. These things and several others, which he might need to get round to on Monday evening.

Mark sighed, but surrendered to the inevitable.

I was very pleased indeed, perhaps we should have visitors more often.

I did not merely sit around supervising all of this activity. I did some cleaning. I washed down the dresser.

This was not because my parents were coming to visit, although I assured Mark that it was. I don’t imagine for an instant that they would be likely to notice that I hadn’t dusted it since last October, which was regrettably the case, but I notice, and it has been making me feel wearily miserable for a long time.

It was gritty, and sticky, and grey.

Today I took everything off it and washed it all. This takes ages. There is a lot of stuff on it. I suppose it is just as well that I did not purchase another teapot, otherwise there would have been even more.

I washed the lovely Tiffany lamps and polished the grandfather clock whilst I was doing it. I loathe cleaning, but love it when it is done. Everything gleams. It looks and feels beautiful and fresh. The bright-painted china seemed to glow, even in the grey twilight of the cloudy afternoon.

I had to go to work when I had finished, but tonight I am looking forward to going home. I have got a lovely clean house with repaired plaster and no unwanted curtain rails anywhere. The microwave shelf has been painted and will be re-hung in a flat sort of way as soon as it is dry.

It is going to be a very joyous homecoming tonight.

There is no place like home.