The cycle home from work this evening was rather eventful, on account of the great deluge that befell most of southern England in time to coincide with my journey. I suspect the gods did it on purpose due to my continual fence sitting with regard to divine matters (in reality, it’s becoming closer to falling into the non existent side of the fence, but that’s another argument for another day).
So. Rain. Lots of it.
Displaying infinite wisdom, I didn’t take my waterproof trousers to work with me today (you may recall I ride a mountain bike the several miles to work). By the time I squelched through the back door this evening I looked very much like I might have just climbed out of the river.
As I stood in the bathroom alongside our youngest, who was singing a song about putting her knickers back on after talking to her imaginary friend while on the toilet, she suddenly took an interest in me.
“What doing Dad?”
“Taking my wet clothes off.”
“Why wet Dad?”
“Because it’s raining outside.”
“Why raining?”
I stopped answering at this point, and flung a wet sock at her, narrowly missing her nose. She giggled, and prepared to return fire. This is one of those moments when, as a parent, you realise your moment of high spirits was incredibly stupid because you now have to bring the situation back under control before a four year old launches into a half naked dirty washing fight with you.
Interest was also taken in my scooping copious amounts of water into my mouth, gargling, and spitting. Anybody who has ridden a bike through a busy town in torrential rain will recognise what was going on. Even though I have mudguards on my bike, sometimes you will have no option but to ride flat out through fairly deep puddles. The kind of puddles that you drive a car through, and hope the floor of the car is watertight (we had a car memorably flood under just these circumstances many moons ago). The problem with doing it on a bike is the pollution filled puddle you tear through somehow ends up firing ahead of you in mid air off the front wheel tread, and going into your mouth. Even a few drops are enough to make you wretch.
It’s now several hours later, I have eaten, and I can still taste the puddles.
If I was any kind of hypochondriac, I would probably be taking tablets by now to kill the billions of germs that are no doubt coursing through my body. Luckily I am not. I’ll lay bets that the germs already living inside me will win. They’re hard, they are - my other half can testify to it. If she gets a cold, she gets it for days, or weeks. If I get a cold, my body usually destroys it within 48 hours. During the middle night my body somehow goes into incinerate mode, and turns the entire bed into a furnace.
I don’t suppose “overheating” is a super power that will ever get me a guest starring role on “Heroes”.