Rain Stops Play

Is everyone enjoying the classic British summer?!

A couple of days ago, 25th August I do believe the date was, I was standing on Royal Parade in a huge downpour, my faux Uggs sucking up the run-off like a massive sponge, thinking to myself "Oh come on, this is a bit funny really!"

I mean, you've got to laugh haven't you? It's supposed to be summer! It sort of was summer when I left the house that morning without a coat, but almost as soon as my bum had touched my seat in the office the rain had started lashing down and now here I was, waiting for my bus home, getting drenched.

I did find it a bit funny really. For about ten minutes which, coincidentally, was roughly the same amount of time it took for the rain to penetrate my clothing right down to my skin. After that point if I was to choose any word to describe my feelings "funny" would not come high on the list of options.

The weird thing was, several buses would have normally arrived by now. In fact, most of the buses going my way had that "Sorry, I'm not in service" message on display that you only ever see at times like this.

There was one bus parked in the next stop with about 8 drivers standing inside, presumably laughing at the shivering crowd spilling out of the bus stop and half the way down the road.

Was I missing something? There seemed to be lots of buses moving on the other side of the road but after half an hour still nothing had come my way. I wondered if there had been an accident, or perhaps a major incident of some description, blocking the route. Everybody seemed to be happy enough getting lashed by the rain, chuckling about how strange it was that no buses had stopped for ages. Such was the Blitz Spirit, I half expected someone to start singing The White Cliffs of Dover as we all shared out the remains of our packed lunches.

Something about this reminded me of The Sudden Blizzard of January '10, which you will remember was when approximately 1cm of snow settled on the pavements and plunged the entire public transport infrastructure into total chaos.


At the point when the rain had soaked right through my hair (aka Total Saturation Point) I decided enough was enough and stomped up to the parked "Not in Service" bus and waited for someone to acknowledge me.

"Ummm, excuse me! Has something happened with the buses? It's just that they don't seem to be in service." I asked politely. 8 people stopped what they were doing and all turned to look at me as if I was mad.

"Err, have you seen the weather, love?" laughed one of the dry-vers.

"What, rain?" I asked.

"Exactly, the roads are very congested!" He informed me in such a way that reminded me I was indeed, completely STUPID.

"Right" I nodded and stropped off, just as a bus finally approached.
What usually takes up 15 minutes of my day took over an hour all because of a bit of rain. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind a bit of rain, but does the entire country really have to grind to a halt? This is Britain! It rains nearly EVERY DAY! Why does it always take everyone by such surprise?
Am I the only person who gets annoyed with this? Because everyone else, albeit damp, seemed to be quite happy getting soaked whilst my blood was boiling like a raging volcano.

And before anyone says it, I would have walked, but I didn't want to get my slippers wet.