The sound of a spatter

We’ve not had any rain to speak of for weeks now, maybe longer. There may have been some minor precipitation, a drizzle and spatter or two, but nothing which has wetted the pavements or stopped me putting my washing out. It may have been a bit chilly and the air somewhat dampish, but rain? No, no rain.

This afternoon I became aware that the air coming in through the open window was slightly cool – I don’t mean it was windy, it was just that there was a temperature drop outside. I’d barely registered this when there was the sound of a spatter and for a moment I wondered what it was – but of course it was rain. It was the sort of rain that comes down as if buckets of water have been emptied, the word ‘;raindrop doesn’t really apply to the mighty globules which were coming straight down like stair rods . It was so noisy – compounded by the rare sound of thunder, not a distant rumble but a mighty roar and tumble of noise, a clap of thunder – or more like a whole-hearted round of applause of thunder.

It’s such a long time since we’ve had rain like this, even longer since we’re had such a loud thunder storm that I opened the front door and stared down the road at the puddles that were pooling and the raindrops bouncing off the road as if propelled by a hidden fountain. It was quite extraordinary – and then it was over. It didn’t so much die down or reduce to a shower or sprinkle, it turned off like a tap, one moment it was heaving it down with rain, the next the air just hung with dampness.

As ever when it rains, I thought of William Wordsworth’s line from his poem about the leech-gatherer, ‘Resolution and Independence’:

“The rain came heavily and fell in floods”

and now the next lines fit perfectly:

“But now the sun is rising calm and bright;
The birds are singing in the distant woods.”