Bizarre idioms for downpours are just one facet of how the UK uses dark humour and ritual to brave the wet
May it fall as a blessing, not as a curse. So goes the ancient prayer inviting us to embrace days of rain.
It is a prayer that would not be welcomed by anyone on the floodplains the UK persists in filling with houses. It would be met with outright hostility by any farmers who are now unable to do any of the things they need to do in February because their land has had literally 40 days and nights of rain.
For most, though, weather affects mood, not home or livelihood. The recent wet spell has been so abundant that residents of these islands may feel they are running out of ways to express stoical acceptance of the inevitability of rainfall: “the garden needed it”, “lovely weather for ducks” and the rest.
Like Wales’s “raining old women and sticks” and the Midlands’ “black over the back of Bill’s mother’s”, these phrases defy all efforts to find their origins. The origin – and the content – is beside the point.
