Rainy Days and Mondays

I am sitting in my office, looking out through the window at the extreme wetness outside, the result of incessant pouring showers for the whole afternoon today. Last night I could hear the whoosh of the sweeping rain at home. More than just the water, the winds have carried the weather, dominated what we wore and made temperatures plunge further than the level they normally are at.

After several years of drought, the rains are back. I was still trying to re-arrange an appointment with Sydney Water to carry out a water-saving check for my house in a Sydney suburb. Apparently the plumber assigned to the case could not make it this coming Monday, but I was not told about it until, on a hunch this afternoon, I decided to phone them to confirm the appointment. The vagaries of calling in a tradeperson in Australian society can sometimes be even be more unpredictable than forecasting rainy weather.

Flying into Sydney on early Monday morning this week, I was treated to an unbelievable -and rare - sight. Instead of the sun lighting up a vast, dry landscape, my aircraft was flying above what seemed to be the Antarctic - thick layers of white, fluffy and furry ice and cloud. There was no break in this formation, until the craft descended and pierced through this heavenly layer to views of a grey dawn breaking over the suburbs and Tasman Sea.

I had barely escaped the torrential downpours in the city centre of Kuala Lumpur as I took a commuter train to KL International Airport on Sunday evening. So I was delightfully surprised with the sunny, but nippy, outlook outside Sydney's Kingsford-Smith Airport and over the regional town of Wollongong. The dry and bright climate soon changed on Tuesday, then Wednesday and so on. If not in the warm coccon of the office, I preferred to be indoors in such moist weather, and watched the State of Origin Mark 2 National Rugby League match between Queensland and New South Wales in the comfort of a mate's house, thankful I was not at Sydney'sTelstra Stadium that evening.

Rainy weather at times needs getting used to. I recall last week, while riding on a bus coach between the cities of Kula Lumpur and Penang, the rather amusing sight of the father of a Middle Eastern family filming equatorial afternoon downpours on the highway. For me, it's relocating my umbrellas; taking out the raingear; and enjoying with some satisfaction how my garden plants are taking in the water like drunkards at a bar. Rain brings in a soothing feeling inside me, and I know for sure we human beings have come from the seas and oceans. Even without consuming it, the mere sight, sensation and feel of a watery world comforts and stabilises me - least of all when trying to wake up before the sun rises and hearing the pitter-patter of falling drops.

We pray for moderation in all things, even rain. My fellow Australians in the Hunter Valley have suffered much grief and disruption in their lives a week back, when the Hunter River broke its banks after 30 years, and I hope that this does not happen again.