Its raining

Subject: It's raining.

The sun is out and the sky is blue. "I wish". It must have been a dream since a glance out of the window reveals the same sullen sky, rain ladened clouds rolling in off the sea, a climatic daily phenomenon, set in stone by the winds coming off three thousand miles of Atlantic Ocean right on our doorstep here in Wales.
The weather and the light make for personality changes. Nordic countries are known for their dour personalities and their dark side. The television depiction is of deep dark secrets hidden behind the windows. Isolated communities fathering and festering ills and a penchant for murder and suicide. The intensity and grim furtherance of the reality of life, no matter how wet or cold it is, life goes on, it has to.
The Welsh are not Nordic but they have a forbearance to the weather which allows life in a seemingly perpetual shower almost to seem normal. You don't see many umbrellas around it's as if they are deliberately disdained as yet another factor to discriminate themselves from the English. Perhaps it's the Welsh hardiness  not to place too much between themselves and the weather but rather accept the vicissitudes of inclement light and storm as character building.
The soggy hills and vales are resplendent in their misty isolation. Mankind has laid his paw here or there but mostly the villages and lonely crofts are a testament to the isolation the small communities seek as a preventive to change. History and tradition is strong here. The eisteddfod is a gathering of old crafts and musical identification that create a bond amongst those Welsh people not held captive by the grand municipalities of Cardiff and Swansea. Urbanisation and a move towards a cosmopolitan lifestyle have little or no place for the history or the bond and the friendly competitive nature of people who know each other by name and family. The choir is at its best in the village hall. There is no need for a concert trained voice, just the blend of masculinity, of men getting together after a shift down the mine to celebrate another day, another day to cherish from  the dangers inherent in the pit. 
I suppose below ground the weather is but a memory but oh so welcome, what ever its mood as the cage moves into the light of day. The trudge through the rain must seem a blessing after the hell and the heat of a shift below.
And so whilst we the English cling to the next weather forecast before venturing out, the Welsh pit their smooth worn faces into the face of the next gale and carry on as expected.