The smell of rain

We're currently listening to the Shipping Forecast in the car returning from Huntingdonshire where we've been visiting Lisa, Mark, Poppy and the Slow Loris. It's been thundering and lightning all night and there are now little wisps of mist rising from the ground which we keep catching in our head lights.

There was a rather exciting little storm going on whilst we sat chatting in the conservatory. At one stage the air was thick with static, and every time there was a flash of lightning we could feel a soft buzzing around our ears.

I was reminded of a trip to the South of France (just before I met Nathan, in fact) when the house we were staying in ended up in the middle of the mother-of-all electric storms. Lightning actually struck that night and destroyed a garden wall no more than four metres away from where I was standing. I can still remember the smell of electricity as the lightning struck, and the hairs on my arms rising up as though I had my hand on a Van de Graaf generator.

The sound of rain on the conservatory roof tonight was wonderfully soothing. I'd cheerfully sleep in a conservatory during a rain storm. The constant drumming would soon send me off to sleep. I did it once with two friends during my sixth form. It was around Hallowe'en, I seem to remember, and my parents had gone away for the night. We carved pumpkins and then went to sleep in the conservatory with the pumpkins flickering in time with the rain.

As we arrived at Lisa and Mark's house we were instantly greeted by the glorious, rich and somewhat dark smell of rain in the countryside - a smell I love and realise I've missed since moving London.

It's felt rather like a Sunday all day today. That's what happens when your husband's day off is a Monday and you're lucky enough to be able to shape your own schedule. I genuinely don't know how some relationships last when one half works in the theatre and the other half has a regular day job. The actor wakes up after their partner has gone to work, and leaves for work just before the partner returns, who goes to bed before the actor gets home. It's disastrous really. Oddly, I'm told it can work quite well for child rearing!