A Cold, Wet Day

And so the cold rain falls on Husborne Crawley. On the far side of the Abbey wall, a lion shudders and dreams of the savannah. These are the times that try our souls.

Sometimes it's the dry waiting times. In the valley of the shadowless death, they pray for thunderclouds and rain, as the poet sang.

But in the cold, wet waiting times? We can have a kind of romance about April showers, or even a monsoon - though we wouldn't want to stand in one, perhaps. But on a cold gray day, (when a cold gray man may) a day which can't be bothered to snow because that would be effort, you get this foul, saturating rain that you can't dance in, can't sing in - you just want so sit indoors and eat crumpets, drink coffee and shudder. Somewhere out there below the southern horizon, the hordes are teeming out of London Bridge station and looking upwards in horror. Fitzrovia's bright clothing will be dimmed by the drizzle. And the floors of Westminster - disobeying all superstition and Health and Safety - will be covered in opened umbrellas.

Still, the children heading schoolwards will have warmed hearts, as they look towards their holiday. And their joy at a week off before Christmas may warm up the doom in some mothers' hearts.  And cold, miserable rain doesn't just bounce off the ground and dry. It soaks deep, as the Greensand blots it up and stores up the promise of life ahead when the land needs it - not now in the dying time, the darkling time, the hoping time - but in the growing time, the awakening time, the rising .time to come.

Think I'll have another coffee. It's absolutely foul out there.