With apologies to people round the World suffering from droughts and floods, I need to say a few words about England’s record-breaking rainy July. Yesterday I expressed my admiration for President Obama’s Speechin’ In The Rain but the wet stuff doesn’t pour off all our backs with such equanimity.

The new French President Francois Hollande looked a lot less phlegmatic when he got his unceremonial soaking.

..but the Queen can grin and bear it.

OK, it rains everywhere and people react in different ways to all that water from above. I know everyone overseas thinks that it always rains in England but, until recently, that was a wild exaggeration. We used to have sunshine too, honestly, occasionally. This year, after a miserably cold May and a recording-breakingly wet June, now, not half way through a very wet July, us English have decided we’ve had enough.

It’s been bad for sportsmen who don’t like getting all muddy and it bodes ill for the London Olympics that is only couple of weeks away with very little hope offered by our weather forecasters.

It’s been bad for baby bats too who are not getting fed enough insects because insects don’t like rain either.

The torrential rain has been bad for flowers, fruit and vegetables and the creatures that need them for survival like bumble bees…..

…butterflies and many other British insects, like hover flies and moths are scarce too this summer…

and, hold back the tears, little pufflings (baby puffins) have been drowning in their clifftop nests…..

…and their parents have been blown off the cliffs too along with other nesting seabirds. Enough! Let’s look on the bright side. Some creatures must enjoy the rain.

The wet summer has been great for slugs……

…and snails. My garden has been invaded by hordes of both and most of my annual plants have now been eaten by them.

Leaves like rain too….I’ve still got plenty of them in my garden too especially the weed varieties.

..and the ducks are loving it but they’re not very intelligent things.

 Frogs love the rain too of course but I’m not sure about their IQ…

…or the sense in some over-excitable children who have probably been banned from playing computer games so they have been made to play something mindless out in the wet….

..playful adults too occasionally find zany ways of enjoying the rain….

as do attention-seeking lovers who imagine that they are in the movies.

They were probably copying Rachel MacAdams and Ryan Gosling in that scene from the film The Notebook (2004)…

..that was probably copying Andy MacDowell and Hugh Grant in that scene from Four Weddings and A Funeral (1994)….

..since those movies,  rain has become a photo opportunity for all kinds of unrealistic soppiness…..

…but, in spite of the posters, I’ve not seen much of this around town. Not in Lewes anyway.

No, I’m afraid that the reality of all that rain is much less romantic.

 This summer’s rain has mostly meant umbrellas, soggy jeans and spoiled summer outdoor events as well as expensive greengrocery and drowned pufflings.

Not much playing in the park, hanging out on the beach or lying in the sun then and a bit of gardening out there with the snails and slugs isn’t that tempting either…

Whatever we might want to do, even kissin’ in the rain, we would be wiser to stay in and watch an old movie on TV. Nothing better, in fact, on a wet day in mid July than digging out a copy of that wonderful film Singin’ In The Rain (1952) starring, as if I need to remind you, Gene Kelly in the scene to cap all rain scenes. After this even I, cynic as I am, could be tempted to don my wellington boots…

..and go out to kick around in a few puddles…

..that’s better. Now, enjoy the movie:

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