It was a time of the year when it rained a lot, and whenever a thunderstorm started brewing, I would run outside to watch the clouds in the sky as they churned about, pushing and shoving other clouds out of the way. As clouds gathered, the sky would grow dark. I would watch for flashes of lightning and wait for the sound of thunder, all the time anticipating the first drops of rain - the big, heavy sporadic ones.
I imagined these first drops as the initial landing force, sent ahead of a mighty army, come to reconnoitre the land before the main troops landed.
. . .
I was near the river when the storm broke. Looking up at the rain clouds, I knew it was going to be a good one. I felt the first warm raindrops hit my face, and within minutes I was drenched. I ran for cover, the only cover I knew - the rabbit hole. I literally fell into the hole, but at least I was safe - from what, I wasn't sure, but I felt safe -- therefore, I was safe. The rabbit was not there. I was alone.
Water was flowing into the hole and running down one of the tunnels. I wondered where it was going. Thunder was now rumbling above, and at times the light from a flash of lightning would illuminate the hole and cast eerie shadows.
As I sat there, my mind drifted off to when we had been on holiday at my grandmother's farm. My grandmother, or nanna as she preferred to be called, lived in a huge stone farmhouse with my uncle. I didn't think he was my real uncle because I already had one of those.
I just called him uncle because everybody else did. Well, they didn't actually refer to him as their uncle. It was more like 'Go and see what your uncle wants,' or 'Ask your uncle to bring some milk or eggs in from the farm,' or whatever, so I automatically called him uncle. The main thing was, I liked him, whoever he was.
I liked going to my nanna's farm for the holidays because the farmyard had a lot of exciting places to explore, and my mum always seemed happier when we visited my nanna. I thought it was because it also brought back happy memories of when she was young - when she used to explore the farmyard. Actually, I'd never thought of my mum as being a little girl, although she had shown me photographs of herself when she was young.
I liked my nanna, but she talked funny. She called me a 'canny wee bairn,' whatever that meant. It didn't sound harmful, so I didn't care.
One day while at my nanna's farm, my dad and I had taken nanna's dog for a walk through the woods down along the river. The river wasn't far from the farm, and I used to spend hours playing down along the riverbank. The river was different from the one near our home. It was much wider and shallower, and in many places, large rocks would stick out of the water, causing the water to splash around them. My nanna said that the river was full of fish, but I never caught any.
The woods down near the river were full of all different types of trees. There were strange plants, weeds and other stuff. My dad said that the plants with the big green leaves were called Bracken. I'm not sure how he knew this. They didn't have signs like the plants in my real uncle's garden, but if he wanted to call them Bracken, that was okay by me. I also remembered all the strange smells in the woods and the sounds of the birds - there were birds everywhere. Most of them were crows. Crows were the noisy ones. It was a happy time - it just seemed that everything was so alive.
My dad and I, and the dog had followed a winding path through the woods, and we headed up alongside the river. As we went, we had to cross small streams that ran down to the river. My nanna called the streams - bourns. I wasn't sure what was wrong with calling them streams. Regardless, most of the streams or bourns or whatever they were called were narrow enough to step over or jump over. The wider ones had stepping stones in place for us to cross without getting our feet wet.
My dad would throw a stick for the dog, and he would run through the Bracken and stuff looking for it. He always found the right one. My dad told me that he could smell the right stick. I remember taking a sniff at a few different sticks, but they all smelled the same regardless of what my dad said, I thought that the dog recognised them by their shape.
The woods eventually thinned out as we approached some open fields. As we got closer to the fields, the dog lost interest in sticks and was now running in all directions, his nose close to the ground, smelling for rabbits.
It was about then that the clouds suddenly grew dark. We immediately headed for home, but it was too late - it started to rain. My dad and I had been dressed only in summer clothes, and so it was only minutes before we were soaked to the skin. The dog looked pitiful. He looked worse than if he had just climbed out of the river. There was no point in running for home - we were too far away, and besides, we were already soaked. The dog was walking along with his head hung low, and his tail drooped. Any thoughts of rabbits or chasing sticks were long gone.
The woods offered little in the way of cover from the rain, and so we just took our time, not that we had much choice. The path had now turned to mud, and the once narrow bourns had become too wide to cross. Any stepping-stones were too deep in the water to be of much use. We had to make our way upstream to where the streams narrowed enough for us to get safely across. At one stream, we came across a tree that had fallen across the bourn from the far bank, and my dad helped me cross over without falling in. The dog waited until we crossed and then decided that swimming was his best option.
Eventually, we arrived home. My mother had a hot bath ready for me. The bath was a big one and stood on funny little legs. It was not like the tin bath that we used to set up in the kitchen at home.
Wearing fresh warm clothes, I came downstairs to a warm fire and a dinner of roast beef, gravy and Yorkshire Pudding. I liked Yorkshire Pudding. Mum had dried the dog on an old towel. He had to stay out in the shed, but my nanna did give him a big bone. There was such a feeling of warmth in that homecoming, and from that day forth, I always associated rain with a sense of comfort, happiness, and above all - Yorkshire Pudding.
. . .
The rain had stopped, and I was no longer dreaming of my time at nanna's farm. I climbed out of the rabbit hole and headed home, hoping my mum had made Yorkshire Pudding for dinner.
. . .