Wet Wet Wet

Summer has definitely arrived in The Netherlands with torrential rain daily and wind the precise speed and direction to fell bins. The pavement is littered with upturned umbrellas and water collects around drains hoping to pour down but finding them too full.

Spring gave us two weeks of good weather. Several afternoons and evenings were spent in the park playing Vondelpark-rules volleyball and even picnicking. It had been easy to believe the summer would be glorious by extrapolation. But Dutch weather, like its English cousin, eludes logic. A perfect morning can easily be followed by a downpour of rain that is almost biblical. And conversely, the blackest of skies can disperse in minutes and the sun will shine down as if nothing had happened. The only way you can tell it had rained is the sopping wetness of everything and everyone, and the fact that around every drain is a two-meter-wide puddle. I guess it’s hard to make water go downhill when it’s below sea level.