Rain is a rare experience shared with all of history

Jun 25 2008 by Laura Davis, Liverpool Daily Post

IT’S raining again. Great big drops chasing each other down the windowpane, weaving from side to side like five-year-olds in the school sports day sack race.

Which one will win?

I wonder this for just a second because it is a short-lived pleasure watching this race – all over in the shortest of moments and no real winners with the competitors ending in a puddle on the sill.

But the rain I could watch all day, in a state of hypnosis, eyes fixed on the drops splashing into the gutter.

The devil’s dance they used to call this motion of water leaping into the air from the force of the shower.

But, although the rain has been performing this dance since time began, its choreography seems modern.

It has more in common with the crowd at Creamfields than a tribal dance. Or perhaps that’s just my perception – defining the world according to the features of my own time.

Watching the rain is one of the few experiences we share with our ancestors, or at least one of the few that you would bring up in polite company.

Buildings decay and new ones rise in their place; babies learn to walk, speak, find their own voices, live their own lives until they have their own children to care for, live for, and so on until centuries have passed.

Yet, there is always the rain, filling rivers, awakening flowers, creating rainbows, ruining weddings . . .

It’s the same natural phenomenon that Anne Boleyn would have watched from the tower during her days of imprisonment before the sharp edge of an axe ended her world forever, the same that helped grow the hollow tree that Robin Hood’s men hid in and the apple that inspired Newton to discover gravity.

It washed away the blood of King Harold’s fallen men on the field near Hastings and wet the hair of those building Westminster Abbey.

Is that why watching a downpour can be such a comfort – because it is consistent, because it can always be relied upon to put in an appearance, at least it can be in this country unused to long periods of drought?

Sometimes rain can be annoying, when you’ve left your umbrella in the pub or someone’s accidentally leant on the sides of the tent and your sleeping bag is soggy.

Sometimes it’s a relief, when the lawn’s starting to turn yellow and hosepipes are forbidden.

The best times of all are when you’re tucked up in bed and you can hear the drops drumming on the window or when the day has been oppressively clammy and you get caught in a shower.

How freeing it can be to let go of convention and, instead of running for shelter or fighting with an umbrella that feels its natural state is inside out, to stand and let the rain run down your face, soak your hair and stick your clothes to your body.

How much more you appreciate a fluffy towel and a set of dry garments, maybe even a warming cup of tea.

What must it feel like to live in a land where there is little risk of a shower interrupting an outdoor concert or picnic in the park, where you won’t suddenly find yourself hurrying to pack away the cheese sandwiches and sausage rolls, even though a minute ago there wasn’t a cloud in the sky?

Many people may welcome the idea of a place where you are guaranteed good weather on your wedding day, and where there is no need to wonder whether the summer holidays will be fine.

A country where tennis tournaments are never washed out and the washing can be left unattended on the line.

But the rain has a purpose beyond watering our crops and filling our reservoirs; it reminds us that, no matter how many gadgets we own or how much power we wield, we can never be entirely in control.

Whether we’re Henry VIII or bewildered of Allerton, not everything is our responsibility.

lauradavis@dailypost.co.uk