It’s a memory from many of our childhoods: tucked up cosily in sleeping bags, safely inside tents, the patter of heavy rain against canvas overhead. I think it remains one of my favourite sounds. That, along with trees rustling in the wind; the thwacks and clinks and clonks of sports (my second column); a wide, flat brush making its way crisply through freshly washed hair; the crackle of flames.
But one doesn’t have to be in a tent to appreciate the sound of rain (or under a gazebo. Or, as I seem to remember vividly when a toddler, under a plastic pram cover). Or even under an umbrella. The sound of rain pelting a car window, along with the squeak of the windscreen wipers, will do it for me. The bouncing of hailstones off sitting room windowpanes, muffled slightly by curtains drawn against the winter dark. I especially love the sound of hail pinging off the inside of a chimney chute and hitting the hearth.
Our senses crave juxtaposition. That’s why sitting in a sauna and then rolling around in snow is so popular in Russia and elsewhere. It’s why a howl of laughter can slip into a sombre reflection before our eyes have fully uncreased. It’s why sweet-and-sour chicken exists. And it is why there is nothing better than being ensconced in the warm, comfortable environs of one’s home, when outside the roads are wet and the gutters streaming. Who doesn’t love turning up the television volume over the rumblings of thunder?
Shaking the water from a brolly and leaving it in the hallway propped up like a satellite dish (jammed in between radiator and skirting board); kicking off boots to slide into slippers – it’s all part of the evening nesting routine. Sure, it’s still nice to be at home when the weather outside is fine, but the snugness is that little bit extra when it is tipping it down.
You’d be surprised how much great writing about rain there is (a deluge, you might say) but my favourite line is this stunningly sardonic number by Mark Twain: “The rain is famous for falling on the just and unjust alike, but if I had the management of such affairs I would rain softly and sweetly on the just, but if I caught a sample of the unjust out doors I would drown him.” Either way, my ears are pricked.
