Thursday 16 October 2008

Multi tasking

I left home the other morning to go to work, and looking up at the sky and seeing some clouds, I decided not to take my umbrella as the sun was not too bright. Umbrellas are essential here to provide shade from the sun when you are walking. However, halfway to work, the heavens opened and a torrential downpour started to drench anyone and anything out in the open - especially me, with no umbrella. That is when I realised that I have been in South Asia for a long time. Really, a Scot has no excuse - I should know better, that the first function of an umbrella is for keeping you dry when it is raining, not for keeping the sun off you. I wonder how that approach would go down in Glasgow?? "Oh now mind and take your umbrella, I think it's gonnie be sunny the day". Somehow I don't think so!

That was one of a number of rather dramatic rainstorms these days. I have seen it called "inter monsoonal monsoon." I think that is the same as the "pre monsoon incessant rain" which I frequently saw reported in the newspapers in Nepal. What often makes the rainstorms dramatic here in Sri Lanka, is the bright sunshine through the torrential rains, giving strange light and shadows. Now how would that go down in Glasgow? Er - it's sunny and it's raining? Now that really is multi tasking!