The rain angles down aloft the driving southerly wind that pushes it across the landscape and drives it into the soggy ground where pools form and the scrounging ibis treads and shakes its sodden wings. The rain sounds like falling sugar. It comes in waves of hushing sound: be quiet, be quiet and rest ... for this day belongs to the Water God and we applaud him. The rain sounds like applause but the performance of the Water Sprites never finishes, it goes on and on.

It has been raining for three days now and the expectation is that it will continue. No dry days good for washing to be hung out on the lines stretched tight across the metal racks out the back. No bright sunlight to crowd out the clouds. No energy, just this endless shoosh, shoosh as the falling sheets of water wash out the gutters and turn the parks into freezing quagmires.

On top of this it's Sunday, day of rest, day of recuperation. But who can really rest with this endless, teeming rain? You rug up and lie down and pick up a good book left over from the day before and the day before that. As the rain never ends, the book never gets finished. You close your eyes but all you hear is the surf crashing against the wind-blown sand dunes out across the shore. No rest with this rain. No use reading. Better to work on a Sunday than to sacrifice a day to the Water God, heaven defeat him.