The old man is snoring

After five weeks of cloudy, the last two days were actually sunny--consistently sunny--to the point where after spending a few hours reading in the park I had rosy sunkisses on my arms and the pleasant sting of the red on my legs rubbing against denim when I changed into pants later that evening when things had cooled down.

This morning, however, we woke up to rain, rain, rain that hasn't stopped all day. TORRENTIAL has been the word of the day. James passed cars up to their bumpers in water and a dude bailing out his basement apartment on his way home from the bus stop. When he got home, umbrella dripping, his jeans were soaked to the thigh. "40 ml an hour" is what the interview-ee on TV is now saying about the rain we received today. I don't know what the figures for July are, but this past June was the rainiest in recorded history--and since this is ye olde country, I'm counting that as pretty significant.

So tonight we stayed in and watched umbrellas bustle by and the newly-formed lakes in the park across the street gradually eat up more ground. As I was putting some clean laundry away, James urgently called me to come see: "There's a duck swimming in the puddle across the street!"

Indeed so there was, a female mallard was checking out the new pond and what it had to offer. We had never seen ducks in the area, as there is no body of water nearby that we've come across, but this little lady was making herself right at home.