The dreary days of summer

Today started off as a quite moderate day.  I wisely took a jacket when I left the house for the day.  I foolishly left my umbrella.  By the time I was down in central London, the sky looked like this:

Meanwhile, my aunt is sending me messages from Pennsylvania about 80 degree weather and an afternoon in the swimming pool.  Sigh.  "They" were right when they said life isn't fair.  Five minutes after I took this photo, the heavens opened.  I started singing a song from my youth: Oh, the rain came down and the flood came up, the rain came down and the flood came up...  Fortunately, this is England.  So five minutes later, the downpour stopped.  I dashed from EAT, the cafe where I bought a cup of soup to warm me up, to the church.  An hour later, when I dashed out of the church to catch someone before she left, the sky was blue and the sun was shining.  I went back into the church to get my bag, chatted to someone else and walked outside.  And into another downpour.  Three of us sprinted into a Starbucks to wait for it to clear up.  One coffee order placed (not me, I'd already had two cups by that point!) and paid for, and the rain stopped.  We walked to the park to join some friends in our Sunday discussions, glancing furtively at the sky every so often, hoping we wouldn't see the dark clouds coming back.  

The clouds followed us.  

The entire group started a little routine.  Rain comes down, umbrellas go up.  Those of us who did not plan well huddled close to those who have lived and learned London's fickle weather patterns.  Usually about ten minutes later, we could start to step away and out from under the umbrellas.  Then the shift came to be out from underneath the leaves of tress, to avoid the remaining droplets.  Umbrellas were collapsed, sunglasses adjusted.  And repeat.

the sea of umbrellas

At one point in my day, I experienced the awful side-affect of being a very observant people watcher.  Standing in the crowd with Valerie, I glanced to my left.  And regretted it.  I poked Valerie.  "Look at the man to my left."  Remember, we were in a crowd.  Still, I could tell the second she saw who I meant.  Have you ever seen a man with homegrown earmuffs?  

I'm not trying to be mean.  This man had more hair coming out of his ears than he had on the top of his head.  I don't know how he could hear ANYTHING.  He looked like he was prepared for a chilly day in the park and slid on a pair of furry earmuffs before waltzing out the door.  

Val leaned over and whispered, "That's exactly why men need women."