Today, I only had the car until 11 a.m. and had a list of things I wanted to do in town such as buy credit for my mobile and mail a bunch of letters.
Unfortunately, I woke up on the wrong side of 10:30.
Around 1 p.m. I was feeling edgy because I really wanted to have my errands done but was stuck at the house. So I thought to myself: It’s a really nice, blustery autumn day. Why not take the dog for a walk, bring my camera to take pretty leafy photos and walk the three kilometres to the little post office in the next village?
Thanks to my mad math skills I figured I could walk there and back in an hour and a half, which would leave me roughly an hour to myself before the kids came home from school. Otherwise known as an hour buffer because my math skills are actually quite poor, plus I have no real idea how long it takes to walk three kilometres uphill.
Since it was such a mild day I threw on my sweater and set off. The dog was thrilled to be walked and I was looking forward to getting out of the house too. Three kilometres isn’t that far but it feels like forever when you can see the little village from a kilometre and a half off. But it was a good walk—just kind of windy.
Around the two kilometre mark, I noticed the wind had blown in some dark clouds. I considered turning back, but I figured the weather would hold.
I’ll skip over the rest since I've ruined the surprise. I was in the post office for about 15 minutes and when I walked out, the poor dog I’d left attached to the post was dripping wet. Within 15 seconds I matched the dog.
It was raining so hard I couldn’t even see. It was ridiculous. And yet, hilarious. Matthew 7:7 came to my mind immediately, but not as a promise. As cruel irony.
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”
You see, it was only one day earlier I had publicly complained I hadn’t witnessed a good autumn storm yet.
The postal clerk told me I could wait out the storm in the post office but I had to get back home to meet the kids. This was the only thing that kept me going. Not only was the rain heavy and wet, it was icy. And painful. My forehead is still raw from the rain.
Oh, I was a miserable sight. There I was, in this flash flood of a storm, drenched, without jacket or umbrella, with an indoor King Charles spaniel that I'm practically dragging down the road.
Half a kilometre into the return journey I thought: well I asked for a storm and I got it. Would it be too much to also ask for a ride?
And, I kid you not, scarcely seconds after my sarcastic prayer, I hear a honk and look up. Before me is a bus of refuge gesturing for me to board.
Originally published November 17, 2006 as A Real Storm Post while Robyn worked as a nanny in East Midlands, England
By Robyn Roste
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