Just for a change let’s have a chit-chat about the shi- weird weather. Ah well, into each life a little rain must fall.

Aqualand.

The late autumn sun setting in a blaze of glory
Put me in mind of that hoary old wive story-
‘Red sky at night brings the shepherd delight,’
Well, even wise old wives ain’t always right.

Before bed I looked out at the wildening sky,
Stepped out for a moment with questioning eye,
Under the rusting verandah in dire need of replacing
The wind whistling through me felt more than bracing.

As the wind whipped the dust from the rusted spouting
My faith in those wise old wives tales I started doubting,
The temperature was tumbling even as I numbly stood
‘Neath a stormy sky and an ill wind blowing no good.

High up in the Heavens something nasty was brewing,
Not God literally; my belief in Him remains nothing doing,
But that wind filled this soul with dread and apprehension,
I felt it in my water (and somewhere else I daren’t mention.)

After replenishing my hot water bottle from the hot tap
I set off to bed, tossing an ice-cube to my nightly nightcap
Only to waken at exactly midnight to either rain on the roof
Or some hoofer tap-dancing up there with heavy cloven hoof.

I wondered if I had been wrong and Judgement Day had come…
But time passed, and on high the rain and hail continued to drum,
So I realised I was still here on Earth, but Hell, it was pissing down-
Now concerned my rosemary, thyme and garden gnome might drown.

Peering anxiously out into the cold deep dark
My small holding looked more like a water park,
In the strobing lightning flashes I saw a sea of mud,
In the morn I’d step off our stoop and into the flood.

Come noon and we’d not seen the effulgent glow of the sun,
Ten inches dumped and *Ol’Send It Down Huey’s not yet done,
Heavens, I feel I must take a good book to bed to pore o’er tonight,
‘Boat-building For Beginners’, the Bible of the amateur Ark-wright.

*Australian entreaty to God to dump down a deluge of rain in times of drought.

 

©Obbverse