Rain, at long last!

At approximately 6 a.m. on July 4th, otherwise known as Independence Day (in the US), I awoke to the beautiful sound of wind and rain on the skylights. This is a beautiful sound. The other day a man said to me that the June just past waas the most dry June he remembers in his 80 years. My potatoes are growing well but I dug three stalks the other day and they were mostly pooreens (small to tiny potatoes). My farming friends said that they, the potatoes, needed some rain for the next couple of weeks to "finish them off." So it has arrived - the rain.

The giver of life - rain (after all the sunshine that is). We landed in Ireland on August 27th, 2009 and we have seen about 2 weeks of rain since then (event hough I lost a car to the floods, but they were in Galway). It's been beautiful weather throughout. We got the real hard freeze with sunshine and then the dry spell with sunshine and now - Hallelujah - rain. We could do without the wind (it might break the potatoe stalks) but we'll take it as it is.

When I grew up in Louisburgh, I slept in the top-room. This was the converted attic in the house in which I grew up. So I could hear the rain on the skylights when I was in bed. And I loved to snuggle myself up in the bed and slowly doze off to sleep to the lovely sound of the pitter-patter of the rain on the roof and the skylights. Nostalgia.

So, this morning, July 4th 2010, Independence Day (in the US) I was drawn back to my childhood by the sound of the rain on the skylights. The wind was blowing and I snuggled up to my wife and two young kids (they come in to us in the morning) and I thought about how my friends in San Francisco hadn't even rose to greet the day yet - indeed in San Francisco it wasn't even Independence day yet (they are 8 hours behind us) - and I thought to myself...

Isn't life great. It just doesn't get much better than this!