The Joys of Parenting in the Rain

Holiday is a wonderful word, isn’t it? It conjures up images of white sands, tropical palm trees and lapping waves. Sadly, this isn’t the case when you’re an expat. At least not when you’re an expat from the north of England. Whilst we may be on holiday at the moment in the technical sense of the word – staying somewhere that isn’t home – a few weeks in Manchester is far from sea, sand and sangria. It’s more a case of rain, rain and more rain.

It hasn’t stopped raining for the last four days.

Not that I’ve been counting. Ahem.

However, for fear of coming across as that whining, miserable bitch that no-one wants to spend time with, I’m attempting to look on the bright side of all this rain. Every cloud has a silver lining and all that – even clouds so large that you can’t see the edges of it as it dumps yet another sea full of water on you drenching you to the bone on your short trip to the local shop.

So, the benefits of parenting in a vile, sodden climate…

Stress free showers

Getting my kids to willingly shower or wash their hair is like attempting to circumnavigate the globe in a sieve. In other words, impossible. We practically have to pin my son down. But of course they both love playing out in the rain and especially standing under any drip they can find. Add a dash of shampoo to their heads as they rush out of the door et voila, two shampooed children. Admittedly it’s somewhat negated by the amount of mud they splash in and the state of their clothes when they come back but at least their hair is mildly cleaner than Stig of the dump’s.

Webbed feet

I estimate that it will take another 3.5 days of solid rain before they will start to grow a little extra skin between their toes. And far from being simply something for the bullies at school to point at laugh at when they changed for gym class, it could also be really useful in learning to swim.

Appreciation of any weather that isn’t rain

When we go back to Lapland at the end of next month there will already be a reasonable covering of snow. A covering of snow that will last for approximately six months. Instead of being their usual whining, sniveling (don’t know where they could possibly have inherited that from. Ahem) and complaining about the cold, after 6 more weeks of rain they are bound to be nothing but thankful just to be somewhere dry.

And erm, yup, that’s about it. The only good points of parenting in never ending rain.

Can you think of any more?

Photo source: pawpaw67