Heavy Showers

Bob and I are getting a bit tired of this rainy weather--and that means a lot, coming from Vancouverites who are pretty used to plenty of rain (Vancouver's annual rainfall is roughly double that of London's). The problem with the recent weeks of rain is that nothing seems to stay constant for long: it'll absolutely pour for ten minutes, then the sun will come out and blast heat on all the newly-formed puddles, making everything seem extremely humid. Then a wind might blow past, chilling the moisture on your skin. And then if you wait a few more minutes, just when you're starting to feel dry again, the sky will go dark and one drop will plop on your nose, making you look up as you wonder if it was just water from the previous rain sliding down from a leaf, or if it's starting to rain again, and before you can decide, the noise all around you decides for you, and the drumming downpour starts all over again. "Heavy showers" is how BBC weather sums up this annoying state of events, and it's become my most-dreaded weather forecast. Anyway, today was one of those days again, so Bob and I decided to forgo any after-school adventures out in the elements in favour of cocooning at home over a hearty supper (pork chops with fried apple halves and whole mustard, with courgette, broccoli, and potatoes filling up the rest of the plate) and two very different films. Before all that, we had our regular late-afternoon coffee treat--Bob's masterpiece of huge mugs of French-press coffee with just the right amount of sugar to bring out all that glorious Monmouth flavour and lovely frothed milk capping it all. We use organic milk at home now,

and I must say that I kind of forgot why we didn't use organic milk in Vancouver--until we were back in Vancouver recently and I remembered how expensive organic milk is in Canada. Unlike in Vancouver, where organic milk tends to be at least twice as expensive as its non-organic counterpart, organic milk in London doesn't cost much more than the non-organic stuff (the 1L size pictured above cost 89 pence, compared with 66 pence for non-organic). I don't know if the milk really tastes any better (I only drink it in coffee or tea), but Bob says it froths much better than non-organic and it's nice to know that it's not full of unwanted extras.