Rainy days in winter

This small area of our front lawn had been full of water off and on for the past few weeks, especially the past few days. Most of winter was relatively dry, but now, in the last month of it, the ground is more saturated than it was in the middle of winter last year. Walking on the lawn sounds like walking on a sponge. A dry Spring would be nice. #lifeinfranklindistrict #lifeinauckland #aucklandwinter2018

A post shared by arthur_amerinz (@arthur_amerinz) on Aug 21, 2018 at 10:37pm PDT

It’s been raining a lot lately, including pretty solidly over the past few days. The area in the photo above often has large puddles when we have heavy storms, but not usually this large. It also hasn’t completely dried up in days, constantly refilled by ever more rain. Sometimes it’s rained heavily, but most of it has been much milder, just a lot of it. I’m very over it.

It rains in much of New Zealand in the wintertime, especially in Auckland. Mid winter (July-ish) is usually the wettest, and it often dries out a bit in August, only for more rains to hit in Spring. So, it’s not unusual that it’s raining in winter, nor even that we’ve had heavy rain. But none of that makes it any more tolerable.

There are two problems I have with this. First, is it’s boring and tiring having grey, dreary days one after the other. But the bigger problem is that it’s interfering with work I have to do.

The ground is so saturated that, as I said in the caption, “Walking on the lawn sounds like walking on a sponge”. That—and the near constant rain—makes it unpleasant and also difficult to clean up the yard, which mainly means removing the weeds. But I also have some stuff from the garage to move out to the garden shed, and the path is really mucky. The near constant rain means that I have very little rain-free time to move things without them getting wet.

Still, this will pass. It always does. And in a few months I’ll be complaining about how hard, dry, and cracked the summer ground is. I may even complain—though this seems unlikely—that it’s too hot. And that will pass, too.

“Whether it rains, or whether it snows, we shall have weather, whether or no.” My mother learned that in school to teach them the “wh” sound that’s not even used anymore. But it’s true, isn’t it?

Still, I’d really like a nice, sunny day right about now. Eventually, I’ll even get one.