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Rain
Rain does funny things to a farmer’s view of the world. I came home from a recent trip to the UK, landing at Cape Town airport in a winter storm. An evil north westerly wind whipped around the peninsular, tearing at waterfalls of heavy Atlantic rain. Before our Table Bay harbour breakwater was built, this sort of storm would cause serious havoc to the ships at anchor in our most important bay. On one fateful night 36 ships were torn loose and wrecked along the Blauberg and Woodstock beaches.
The Sadly I knew wise old trees would be pulled up, as though malicious squall fists actually targeted the infirm woody centurions around our vineyards. And with a grey storm like this there would be flooding on the Cape Flats; and these things worried me. But I also knew our dams would be getting a desperately needed top up and as I leaned into the wind and rain I couldn’t have been happier.
The day before that I had been drinking whisky and listening to brilliant jigs and heartbreaking ballads from a band called Skipinnish on the Hebridean Isle of Tiree far off the west coast of Scotland. This starkly beautiful island is about 12 miles long and 3 miles wide. I counted 6 trees. The “spring” temperature hovered just above zero centigrade and the wind scraped over the exposed granite like icy, invisible sandpaper. Sheets of sleet closed across the horizon, suddenly parting to sunlight over the white beaches like curtains at the mermaids’ opera. I couldn’t have been happier.
How profoundly ironic that our most vital natural resource, water, comes from the sky in the form of rain. Appearing out of the ethereal blue, the result of farmers’ prayers and climatic mechanics, rain allows this wheezing, asthmatic planet to gasp again.
I was playing the favourites game with my two young boys around the braai yesterday. My favourite drink was wine, my youngest likes mango juice and my eldest loves Appeltizer. His favourite colour is red. I said blue, and my youngest, after a few seconds contemplation said, “My favourite colour is rain.” I had to agree.
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