Walking in the Rain

Since January, when I had a stroke that has left my right hand side somewhat jiggered, I have had the joy of being able to walk slowly everywhere - although to be honest slowly is the only option. Initially with a crutch and now with a walking stick. I know that slow cooking is the mantra of some of the more chi-chi classes (for them as haven't got a life beyond slaving over a hot stove all day)but I would happily recommend slow walking as the next big thing!

As the world and its dog goes racing by the slow walker gets to observe beautifully the glories and folly of life in the greatest city in the multiverse (that's London to the unknowing).

For example the evil that is chugging (charity mugging by eejit students in hi-viz vests) starts to take on a more menacing dimension when they get a good long time to size you up whilst you get to dread the incipient guilt trip as they imply you don't care about, as it might be, homeless, eco-unaware, whale killing child refugees. I have learned to control and indeed master this dread since my epoch shaking discovery that the involuntary and spastic jerking of my head and right hand scares most of them more than they do me. Failing which the old fall back of enquiring "Ich werde Sie sprechen Deutsch machen?" has them fleeing. A crip might be ok but a twitching German crip seems to conjure up Herr Flick of the Gestapo.

Dog "owners" are another group which enliven the day. They fail to understand that crips and dogs get on fine. A great deal of swerving takes place as the poor mutt (the dog that is) is dragged away presumably on the basis that it might either savage me (believe me no terrier is BIG enough) or that I might transfer some strange incapacity to the animal.

Then there is the push chair brigade! These rather weird females (who all seem to think that having pupped is a great achievement) happily send you arse over tit and then spend five minutes comforting the poor babe (not me the one in the pram). Thats when they are not nursing the bruise caused by the last minute application of a walking stick to their shins. Don't annoy the loony with the stick...its not big and its not clever.

Enough about this what happened to walking in the rain? Isn't that the subject of this blog? Well the good thing about rain is that humans generally do their best to get away from it. Chuggers hat it (vanishing into doorways), anti social dog owners decide to take their dogs (who on the whole are entirely better mannered and presented than their "owners") out later, and it is a well known fact that babies melt in rain.

The result is that the streets become free of these obnoxities (I do hope that is a word - if not it ought to be) and mavens like me can strut (ok limp) their stuff with a bit more security. But more than that rain is a great thing to walk in (perhaps that is the Glaswegian in me making necessity the mother of invention)just for the doing of it.

Now admittedly the horizontal in yer face forceful stuff that I grew up with in the Dear Green Place (that's Glasgu for the uninitiated) is a touch taxing but the more gentle vertical variety found in the Sasannach lands can be invigorating.

The streets glisten and adventure seems to beckon around every corner. The looming overcast (no rain without clouds after all) makes even bland office blocks seem to shimmer out of fantasy. Bedraggled pigeons mirror the rainbows cast by oil slicks in puddles in their neck feathers. And best of all buses and other vehicles acquire a new weapon in the never ending war with the devil's own (cyclists) spraying them at every corner and traffic light with what seem to be walls of water...all for the schadenfreudian joy of the rain walker.

Go on try it (pinch a walking stick if it makes you feel less obviously perverted as you fail to seek shelter) I can assure you that a good drenching will reveal a new world to you.