Weather report

When I went out to do my chores, the sky was spectacular. Against the deep viridian green of the sycamores the clouds were a startling, indescribable blue grey, lit from below by late afternoon sunshine. The sky had been sliced down the middle as if by a knife, dark and light; the other side was the sunny turquoise of summer skies everywhere. White clouds raced and boiled across the darker half, and the sky suddenly felt like what it is - a layer of skin. Our atmosphere, in constant motion like the delicate skin of a bubble is what the astronauts marvel at, incandescent and only millimetres thin from their point of view. From below, the vast depth of the sky and my insignificance beneath it was plain. The dark, heavy vapour became a high cathedral roof or the surface of the sea viewed from its depths, then a wave, its exquisite white horses racing to capture more of the blue.

As I was busy staring, no doubt with a particularly absent expression on my face, the wave broke. An almighty clap of thunder shook the air and the clouds fell to earth with a slap, sizzling rain liberating that summer thundery smell. No-one was prepared; grimacing people started the half-run that only the rained on do, hiding under sodden trees, holding pointless newspapers over their heads as the rain bounced back up at them from the pavement. A man in a thin t-shirt shouldered his tiny child, and the child laughed, shaking its drenched curls with glee.