The first thing I did when I stepped out my house this morning was to turn my face up to the sky – Rain!
Not heavy drenching rain but a misting drizzle, the kind that weaves a crown of shimmering diamonds in your hair and makes you feel like you’re living in a cloud. I suspect this was not the reaction most people had, certainly on my walk to work there were countless umbrellas and bodies huddled deep into jackets. Not me though. Despite living and working in Edinburgh and the preconceptions of Scottish weather, I can’t actually remember the last time it rained. It’s been so cold over the past few months that any precipitation that has fallen has been snow. This morning, with my face wet I realised, I’ve missed it.
It’s not that I don’t love the snow - I do - I’m a child at Christmas when it snows and it’s certainly not that I don’t love sunny warmth. I gaze wistfully at friend’s tropical holiday photos but, I also love the Scottish rain.
While at university I spend a year studying at a university in New Mexico. It was some of the best times of my life and I’ll remember the people I meet and the experiences I had forever. One of my residing memories however was that it was hot, hot and dry, hot and dry and desert. There are parts of New Mexico that are incredibly beautiful but it was so sun-baked and bleached it felt a bit alien to me (perhaps that’s why Aliens tried to land in Roswell?!) I promise at one point I saw an actual tumbleweed!
Descending through the clouds and coming in to land at Edinburgh Airport after my year away I was beyond excited to see my family, friends and homeland but I did think for a second “typical Scottish welcome – rain.” I’d been so used to blue skies and warmth, leaving the US in shorts and t-shirt I wasn’t really prepared for a Scottish August. I stepped off the plane.
It was cool and drizzly and I wept.
It felt like home.
For the next few weeks I couldn’t get over how green everything was; the scenery felt so lush and vital - I kept touching leaves and grass to make sure it was real - the air was so fresh and clean; breathing deeply didn’t dry out my throat or scorch my lungs. A short time later I travelled to the North West of Scotland and rejoiced in spending hours tramping across heather, bog myrtle and bog cotton, fishing in lochs, paddling in fast running streams and sinking up to my knees in deliciously peaty squishy saturated land.
Just after a rain storm can be the most beautiful time to see Scotland’s scenery. When it rains the mountains come alive with thousands of tiny waterfalls that squirm through rocks and drop over cliffs like falling stars.
But the cloud and the rain-shrouded mountains can also look foreboding and severe. The Scottish mountains can be unyielding and relentless at the best of times but they are ruthless in the rain. Scotland is old and her history is violent and bloody. It seems to lend itself to misty mornings and wet shadowy nights, rather than sunny afternoons. In that type of atmosphere it’s easy to imagine fierce clashes on their slippery faces.
We’re lucky in so many respects in this country but our fresh, pure water is one of our crowning glories. We seldom if ever have hosepipe bans like our Southern neighbours and – thank God – there is always enough for everyone to drink as well as plenty to spare. The rain is an integral part of Scotland and I think her people. We complain about the rain but without it this country wouldn’t be what it is today, verdant and fertile and beautiful - I think we should be grateful for it as well.
When I walk out the office this evening I’ll turn my face up to the sky and feel the rain.