It really shouldn’t be a surprise to me, after all these years, but Britain can be a jolly damp place in winter. As the photo up top illustrates, the road and the sky can be hard to tell apart at times, especially out in the countryside.
Sometimes, this (by which I actually mean driving rain) is quite agreeable. For example, there is little cosier than sitting at one end of the splendid, long wooden work/dining table that is the heart of Totleigh Barton, pen and notebook ready to hand, and gazing out at a very wet garden, populated by equally wet pheasants and blackbirds, knowing you don’t have to set foot outside for hours. Better still, some ambitious person has lit a cheerful fire in the log-burner stove, and that’s taken away any chill that might linger in the stone paving underfoot.
Watching the rain annoy other people out on the city streets is okay, too, at least if one is in an annoyed or vindictive mood one’s self. This photo, of a drenched Trafalgar Square, was taken from the cafe windows of the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery. And I only felt mildly sorry for the poor sods dashing for cabs that wouldn’t stop, because I myself had just spent more than £7 for a barely-grilled ham and cheese ‘panini’ and an old-school (read, tiny) glass bottle of Coca-Cola. The latter was not even issued with a glass, let alone ice, but I was waved to a counter where I found mimsy paper napkins and some straws. Honestly.
I wish I could say I was utterly uplifted by the four hours I spent trudging about the Nat Gal in my too-heavy rainboots, but… not really. I hadn’t been in the National in ages, and now I remember why. There are acres of canvases by Raphael (who I can work up some enthusiasm for) and many acres more by artists I’ve only vaguely heard of — and I was a bit of an art student in my time, and know my Caravaggios from my Canalettos. I could have sworn there were more Turners, but the one I really wanted to see, The Fighting Temeraire, was mobbed by French schoolkids doing a gallery worksheet. Ditto Constables, although at least the ones I saw were still enchanting. Between the wall colours and the general tenor of the art, it was all quite gloomy. Only the main shop was bright and festively decked out, which I suppose for Christmas is only right.
Heck, there were other good reasons to be gloomy and grumpy on that sopping Thursday, and I’m not even British and couldn’t vote if I tried.
I plodded back to my hotel after the National closed, and discovered the ceiling was leaking in my top-floor bedroom. The management bundled me off to a somewhat-furnished flat in a dark alley behind a theatre five minutes away, and left me to fend for myself without even giving me the wi-fi password. Sheesh.