I have been more than usually at home on my cyberfriend Patti’s blog, I can report.
That is to say, while I adore my cybervisits to LA and its surrounding land, and Patti’s stunning sorties into the desert, she has over the past few days shown me a new side to California.
It is called : The Gloom.
Patti, as always, writes with accomplished animation about a life which is more often blessed by sunshine. But her photographs in her recent posts have shown me a light which is so familiar I can touch it: because it is the light in which I have grown up, and in which I raise my own family.
The June Gloom happens in California, when cold sea air meets hot desert air, and together they make a layer of cloud: no rain, just cloud.
Patti featured a picture of the beach in her last post, ‘See You In the Morning’. The sea rolled in under grey skies and it looked for all the world like Bognor: I could almost taste the fish and chips.
The gloom will not be with our Californian friends forever; soon it will move on and the palms will bask in sunshine once more.
Meanwhile here, we have the June- to-March Gloom, with 100 per cent chance of precipitation. Recent years have convinced Britishers that our warm sunshine comes about April or May; now we are mid June, and the rains have returned.
We have had such lovely weather, here in the south. We have woken up with a modicum of certainty that we could picnic at lunch, or cricket practice would be on, or Phil would be cooking tea in the chimenea.
Last week we were served up sunshine-and-showers by the weather gods. We don’t mind that too much here: while it requires split-second timing on the hanging-out-the-washing front, we have the whole Run Out While It’s Sunny thing off to a tee, scurrying back inside when dodging the huge skydiving drops becomes an impossibility.
But that sunshine was just a last encore before the curtain closed, it seems, and it’s coming down in stair rods today.
Even on a day such as this, dogs must be walked.
We have one umbrella: a Steed from the Avengers special. I didn’t have a bowler hat to go with it. I slipped the mutt on a lead still damp from the dog’s morning walk, and stepped out into the wide wet world.
Back to normal, then; we crossed the road into the forest and hugged the tree canopies in the vain hope that it might be slightly drier. The puddles were back and they’d been to the beauty parlour: they were crystal clear, unlike the dogs favourite mosquito-bedecked sludge troughs of the previous week.
The forest was happy. The dog was happy, because nothing had seeped through to his base coat yet. I can do this, I thought: as long as I stick under the tree canopies.
At which we spotted Macaulay’s sworn enemy, the dog he harangues from the safe confines behind our garden gate. I believe Mac is awfully rude, but I have no proof because I do not speak dog. Wisely, Mac took one look at his great muscly mountainous enemy and shot off in the opposite direction.
There was only one thing for it: we must follow the path onto the exposed tabletop of the iron age fort in the forest. Away from the trees, we would feel the full weight of the rain.
A gust of rain slammed the stair-rods straight into our faces. Inhospitable is not the word: this was wuthering rain, from which the ghostly Cathy pleaded to be delivered,; this was the relentless deluge which lashed the Cornish smugglers as they loaded contraband goods into Jamaica inn on Bodmin Moor.
Nowhere does rain like the Britain. Just ask the Romans.
We bent into the drops and trudged on. Only hard-line dog walkers are out on a day like this: and I met one, dressed in a sodden Barber, with a wide-brimmed hat which was doing a passable impression of the Roman fountains of St Peter’s Square.
Rain makes us less animate than usual. I trudged past and uttered a grim, comradely greeting, like one of Stalin’s henchmen. He was very busy calling the Dog That Wasn’t There Yet.
Her name was Elli, and as I passed him and strode on up the hill, I spotted a golden weevil careering around in the far distance, mad with the joy of puddles.
He called Elli and she grinned maniacally before choosing the polar opposite direction to the one in which lay her owner, and running, helter-skelter, to sample puddles beyond the dreams of doggy avarice.
Her owner was, I think, almost too wet to care.
I never saw her return. Mac and I turned back homewards, and as the water finally seeped to his skin, he administered reproachful looks from underneath those voluminous eyebrows.
This is, of course, all your fault, he emanated.
Image courtesy of http://www.free-desktop-backgrounds.net
Kate Shrewsday 
oh you have had some Jpohannesburg rain there! the stuff that comes straight from a big bucket up there, no messing around with p[rissy little drops, just the deluge
We do, Sidey, by the sound of it. Hope it stops before October…
Splish Splash . . . Macauley had a bath ~ and dragged poor Kate into the wetness with him!
This line brought back memories for me: this was the relentless deluge which lashed the Cornish smugglers as they loaded contraband goods into Jamaica inn on Bodmin Moor.
Your last line sums up perfectly how Tigger responds to less favorable conditions out of doors . . . as if we somehow forgot to order up the correct temperature for his outing.
How could we both be so careless, Nancy? Our poor beleaguered animals….
The re-pointing of my patio is on hold: not possible when wet. How frustrating, as I bought the tools I needed yesterday! Well maybe this wee drop will call off the drought warnings?
We British are never happy with the weather, are we?!
(Postponement of patio pointing due to precipitation is perplexing)
Precisely…
Let us hope, now we have had this lovely rain, that the sun comes back. that this is not the end, Pseu, but the beginning, and your patio will soon be perfectly pointed.
As you know, our mac is in the conservatory, and as I type this, it’s noisy out here with the sound of rain on the roof
We would never in a million years have heard it during our facetime call, now, would we? 😀
We’ll have to visit Britain some day – my daughter misses regular rain – she glories in it when we have it.
Each year when the first rain falls after the 6-month dry spell, I am usually confused by the sound of the drops hitting the roof – “What is that noise?” always crosses my mind at least for a moment.
And thanks for the mention!
Patti, your writing on The Gloom broadened my horizons 🙂 I had no idea! You must come and sample some rain: but I do hope we offer you a little sun when you come, too. It lights the country up so nicely.
To wonder what the noise of rain is: I’d love to do that at least once in my life 🙂
Glad to know I’m not the only silly who feels bad if the dog doesn’t get walked, rain or shine.
The weather has been most odd here as well. The pup and I jogged a couple miles today to the grocer and then walked home under skies threatening another storm. It never did but the temps were 20 less than two days before (actually, my kind of day, covered in clouds) Soggsville, excellent title & post~
it is good to know the heavens never opened on you this time, Angela 🙂 Dogs are a wonderful excuse to be out there, whatever it’s like, aren’t they?
It seems to have been raining in Belfast since the start of time (with a brief dry spell during March/April). I’m still wearing wintry clothes; tights and boots even! I did take some comfort in California gloom, but wish I could be so sure that ours will pass!
It would be nice, wouldn’t it, Speccy….
There is nothing more embarrassing to me than have my dog run in the opposite direction when I call him/her! *cringe* 😀
It is a truly embarrassing thing to find one has no influence over one’s dog whatsoever, Adeeyoyo. For me, it is not so much a chance happening as a way of life.
If I’ve said this before, forgive me and delete, but, have you read The Art of Racing in the Rain? You must. Better yet, get it on audio and listen to it while experience all your woods have to offer with Mac! It is a novel, told through the eyes of a dog, Enzo, whose master is a Formula One race car driver, and it is at once funny and sad, insightful and philosophical. Your post reminded me anew the book, which I read for our book group and then bought for Tom to listen to and he is loving it!
Audiobook it is, then, Penny! Thanks for the recommendation!
(I see the comments are behaving once more…)
Great post. I felt for you and Mac trudging through that cold wet rain (I maintain that not all rain is ‘wet’).
(I’m SO happy to be home again after my brief (cold and wet) stay in England.)
I’m not surprised, Earlybird…the land where the umbrella is king….glad you’re back safe and sound 🙂
We had a very wet spring here this year, one that nearly drowned my new forsythia hedge and washed the mulched pathways to the bottom of the herb garden. When it was (again) too rainy for the cats’ morning stroll inthe garden, they sat and looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to turn it off. This soon turned to disgust at my inability and a flounce off to nap.
These cats find it so hard to get the right staff, Elizabeth 😀
You sure are dedicated to that hound, Kate, nothing would get me out in the rain, I’m like a cat that way.
If I don’t walk him he creates his own special kind of havoc. Staring contests, desperate groan sprechgesang, incidental pointing stances, the lot. It’s grisly performance art. Staying dry is not a fair exchange, Cindy 🙂
I think Sydney could rival Britain today for rain, Kate – definitely a hot chocolate day here 😀
With marshmallows and cream, I trust, BB 🙂
British weather should have put us off getting dogs, but we are suckers for punishment. Which is to say, I suck, because I do the bulk of the dog walking.
Sunshine today, though!
Isn’t it lovely, Tilly? The rain’s back for Friday though….