For the most part, I’ve found the whole English rain thing to be a myth. It’s hardly ever raining here, however it seems that is has always just rained. Basically, it’s just always wet. When it is raining, though, it’s what we at home would consider spitting. And the water is always ice cold. Because of this, anyone caught in the rain just becomes a walking popsicle. It’s a chilled-to-the-bone kind of wet, cold feeling. And if you’re staying outside it’s nearly impossible to get dry and warm. Mainly because there’s not that much sun to help you out. Plus, the water on the ground never dries up so your feet and the bottom of your pants and always wet and sloshy.

Now, I don’t want to take the whole rain thing away from England. It is definitely wet, don’t get me wrong. Which means it does rain, yes. It’s kind of like, at home, when you wake up in the morning, throw open your curtains and bam there’s a thick blanket of snow all over everything. It all happens at night so you just wake up to the finished product. I think when I moved here I expected rain. Seriously, heavy rain. Like summer downpours. The kind where when you’re driving and you have the windshield washers on full power and you still can’t see 3 feet in front of you. The kind of rain that has people driving 40 km on the 401. The kind that has your parents taking emergency precautions in the basement. That kind of rain. And that’s just not what I’ve come to know here. Then again, that kind of rain tends to last for 15 minutes, give or take. Here, one rain can last hours and hours. So, the water fall definitely adds up. There is a big river through the middle of York, with shops and bars all along its banks. They are often flooded. There is even one pub, called the King’s Arms which has a flood tracker on one of it’s walls, marking the levels of all the floods that have happened in the past.

Flooding is so common here, that pubs don’t close when they are flooded, they just move the patrons upstairs! Here are some pictures of the King’s Arms I took a few days ago. They were taken about 5 hours apart.

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When I left my house this morning to walk to work, it was raining. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t look out the window before I left the house so my shoe choice for the walk to work was less than desirable considering the weather. I was running a bit late so I didn’t bother going back to change. I trudged out the door and thought, “It’s only 15 minutes. How bad can it get.” When it’s raining, slip on shoes and no socks will always leave your feet swimming. Especially my shoes, they seem to hold onto the water. I’m pretty sure if I took my shoe off, I could tilt it and pour out a measurable amount of water. And not only do they get soaked, they stay soaked. After toweling them off and leaving them in a dry room for 8 hours while I work, they are still dripping when I put them back on at the end of the day.

Anyway, on this particular walk to work I had my head down (to minimize the water droplets that gather on my glasses) but I looked up just in time to see a bus coming my way.  A quick glance onto the street would have warned me of the giant puddle beside me, but instead of teaching myself this information I got to learn it when the bus splashed half the water all over me. I mentioned this to my co-workers and they told me that, apparently, it is illegal for a car or bus to splash pedestrians by driving through puddles. I found this interesting as most English streets are so narrow it seems impossible for a car to go anywhere but in a straight line, let alone moving to avoid puddles. I guess the idea is that they should slow down so that no splashing occurs. Regardless, I got to work on time but covered in manky street water.