Life moves pretty fast

Many people have asked me to share all about my sabbatical. In addition, a not insignificant proportion of those individuals have quite honestly stated that this is to live vicariously through my adventures in the hope that I shall do all the exciting things I have said I’d like to do. I suppose this is to provide the equivalent of the postcard to be fixed on the taxi window sunshade for instant transportation to an exotic, tranquil place amid the day-to-day noise a la Jamie Foxx’s character in Collateral. And therefore, I suppose my challenge is to live up to this expectation and provide this service!

Thus, I have been sharing photos on my Instagram while I have been out and about this week. However, the one thing that has not been present in those photos this first week of November in the UK, are the hoped-for tropical suns of far-off places. It has been damp here. I would suggest going as far as to describe it as wet. In fact, sodden is probably the most apt description. That’s right, two weeks in and I am already filling a blog by talking about the weather!

I remember once hearing someone say that the British talk about the weather all the time because we don’t have any. The insinuation being that, because Britain has generally cooler summers than most places and milder winters, we don’t have the weather extremes of, for example, the 60C temperature swings of Canada, or the hurricanes of the Caribbean. Hence small changes in weather become big topics.

This is likely very true but what is also interesting, is that despite the weather always being a good point of conversation for the average Brit, it doesn’t often affect what we do. We just get wet. The most pertinent example of this I have seen this week, was at 5^th November fireworks in Sussex, where hardy souls had stood, (for two hours in some cases), in lashing rain to see twenty minutes of fireworks because it was Bonfire Night and every British school child has learned to never forget the 5^th of November.

Rain in that situation is a great uniter of people. The common drenching removes barriers. You do instantly have a conversation starter with whomever is around you. I wonder if at the back of every British astronomer’s mind in the search for rocky exoplanets in the Goldilocks zone of other stars, (where water can exist as a liquid and hence the planet potentially be Earth-like), there isn’t a thought that we could talk to any potential extra-terrestrial life about the weather and hence have a galactic level ice-breaker ready to go!

Still, on this little ball of rock, this wet November evening bought back to me a lovely memory of the first time my lovely Jen properly met my parents. We were at the fireworks in Ware, Hertfordshire on a soaking wet evening. We had been dating about a month. There was a little apprehension just because it was that kind of moment, but the rain removed it in a unique way. By the time we got home, the towels and hairdryer had been bought out and the sausages cooked and eaten, any apprehension had passed, and the common ground and shared funny story was established.

So, I can’t guarantee that I won’t ever complain about the weather – as we have determined this is part of my cultural norm – but maybe I might start to remember just how wonderful the rain can be. Its ability to nurture us, both as the sustenance of life but in helping us create the stories that describe that life as a human, can’t be overlooked. Jen always remembered her grandmother saying in her Geordie accent “a bit’a wa’er ne’er hurt yer”. She was right. In fact, I might go so far as to say that this week, it has helped me smile with family, friends, and strangers alike in its own unique way and I am very grateful for that.