James O'Brien

“I woke up and thought for half a second of taking a sickie”, a bloke at work said to me as we took the lift together this morning. I knew exactly what he meant because I had the same feelings an hour or so earlier. However, I have a reasonably strong work ethic, and far too much on at the moment to even think about having a day at home.

“It took me an hour to get to work” he told me, complaining about the sluggishness of the road system. “We don’t cope well with the rain in Sydney”, I suggested.

And we don’t. I had to go looking for an umbrella this morning and all I could find was a busted one which I had to hold open myself. It’s my “big gay umbrella” as I like to call it, a reference to the rainbow flag design. All of my other umbrellas were in my office at work, as that’s generally what happens in Sydney. Generally, it’s raining in the morning, so you take your umbrella to work, and then you leave it there, because it’s generally dry by the afternoon. But there are times of the year – like now – where it just keeps raining and raining.

I like the rain at night. In fact, I love the rain at night. I’ll often sleep with the window slightly open so I can take in the smells and slight chill of the rain at night, as well as the sounds. I almost feel like I’m back in the country again. But when it comes to daytime, ugh.

And you can see it around town in the ways in which people cope with the rain. You see a lot of broken down umbrellas when it rains in Sydney. Others will jump from cover to cover, as the idea of owning an umbrella almost seems foreign. There was one bloke on the bus this morning whose “rain strategy” was a baseball cap.

There was a bright moment in the otherwise glum day, however, as I caught up with Cellobella who has been in Sydney for the blogger’s conference. “There were so many amazing stories” she told me, of the people who had bared their souls after years of domestic abuse or had recovered from a serious illness. We both agreed our stories about weather and pop music pale into comparison. Still, we love doing it.

It’s been a take-away pizza night for me and a bit of television watching. I’m a little congested at the moment – I think it’s a bit of hayfever – so I’m feeling a little sluggish myself. Or maybe it’s the combination of the rain and a rather amazing full moon?