Looking out the window at blustery rain. This year's drought seems a distant memory. The weather is a perennial subject of conversation- we have a lot of it!

 So I'm wary of making generalisations but I do think that rain has changed in the UK over the past decade or two. Of course we've always had every kind of rain from light showers to torrents, that is the nature of living on an island. Increasingly though we have monsoon-like downpours. The sky is clear, then it suddenly rains so heavily that the air couldn't actually hold more water, then it stops abruptly and the sky is clear again.

 Having said that today is a classic rainy day in England- grey sky, low cloud, persistent drizzle and a wind that will shake the last leaves off the trees.