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but not quite over as I rashly decided to make a run for it. What really seems to be over is the magic/ spooky summer that just wouldn’t go away.

I set off to train on the toboggan hill today. It was humid with a mixed sky. After being spoiled for so many weeks I trusted the patch of blue over the ominous thundercloud. I bet on the wrong horse- patch of sky that is. No sooner had I done my measly four up and down the hill than it began to spit rain. I made for a nearby bus shelter where I spent one hour listening on my phone, transfixed by Dylan Thomas.

I love Walt Whitman for his excesses of language. I had forgotten about Thomas who is just as tripping, trailing and terrorizingly over the top. I had neglected to cancel an introductory offer on Amazon music and last night managed to persuade a very polite and accommodating employee to give me a few freebies before I pulled the plug. The BBC recordings of Thomas and Richard Burton reading lots of Thomas’ work was one I chose.

As the rain poured down I listened, entranced, to parts of Under Milk Wood that I had forgotten.

Rain teemed down, busses stopped and left, my clothes almost dried out. When I noticed that an hour had passed in the company of Thomas’ all too believable fantastic characters, I resolved to watch for a slack-off of the deluge.

As if by magic the rain tapered off to a few lazy drops….. only to tamp down again as soon as I got a block away from my bus shelter. I could hear old Dylan chuckling overhead. “I told you to take an umbrella” the chant of every Welshman from here to Llanfair…. echoed in my dripping eardrums.

The wind blew and I was chilly in my now soaking wet clothes. Another bus shelter loomed but the heavens relented and I was able to continue on home. A hot shower and a “ nice cup of tea” set me up for a cosy afternoon

Good thing, I suppose. The other day I was explaining what “ conkers” are to my grandkids. It doesn’t translate well into French somehow.