Intense I know. I might paint the pair to this, from photos I took while the rain was falling. On a mountainous island, when you’re up high, you can see the rain coming. When you have no-where to go, and can just look out at the rain, it’s quite beautiful.

My favourite thing as a child was to read on a rainy day. Actually, I read every spare moment I got, but my idea of bliss was to curl up in bed and read my weekend away. I loved to sit up and look out the window next to my bed at the water falling on the croton leaves. Or down the hill where the rain made puddles in the dirt road. And who doesn’t like the soothing sound of rain? Especially on a galvanized rooftop.

The rain can come on suddenly in the Caribbean, big fat drops that soak through your clothes and cool you down. Then just as suddenly it stops, and the sun shines down and dries you up. I never wore a raincoat as a child, very seldom used an umbrella. We weren’t worried about things like “acid rain”, it was just a part of nature, a fact of life.

If you were in town when the rain fell, you’d huddle under the nearest storefront with a bunch of strangers and exchange smiles and maybe some conversation. It never lasted long. And maybe we welcomed it too, after the long dry season … the same way North Americans welcome the spring after a long winter.