The First Rain

I know this is a bit of a non-event for most people, especially those living in Northern Europe, but the first rains came yesterday.

It basically doesn’t rain here between April and October, that’s some 7 months a year. Now that is not to say I haven’t seen rain these past 7 months; I spent the summer in Europe,  one of the wettest summers on record.  'July was the main culprit, bringing an amount of precipitation rivaled only by July 1966.'

But rain in Beirut is different. The first rains are violent, causing major traffic jams and floods, and nobody is prepared for them, including me. As such, all the cushions and pillows and foam seating of the outdoor furniture are now soaking wet, I lost half of the laundry on my laundry line - since the rain comes with quite a few wind gusts –and our two canaries sit there in their cages, looking slightly disheveled, and will probably die of pneumonia.

But the temperature has dropped a few degrees, the air has cleared up, I can see the mountains again at dusk, and the horizon is now a clear sharp blue line. And we’ve got beautiful cloudy skies.

And so here's a picture of Beirut after the first rain.