It hardly ever rains in the summer in Perth. We are accustomed to the hot and the dry. Suburbs turn slowly more brown. More crisp. Lawns are left to die. The two day watering roster will not sustain them. Ukuleles need humidifying. So when it rains in December it feels like a different place. Perhaps we are in Northern NSW. Perhaps we are in the Kimberley. No, not humid enough. Thunder is grumbling and growling in the distance and then a thwack overhead, like a heavy eucalyptus bough breaking. Solid rain now. Fat juicy droplets. Like a Sydney thunderstorm. The branches of the trees outside are wet black, lacquered. The leaves are more green. The sky is a solid gun metal grey. There is the tick tack of the rain on the corrugated iron roof. Birds have stopped singing, sheltering somewhere. Where?
I have made a tea cake for the last tennis lesson. But it will be cancelled. The courts will be wet and it will be too dangerous to run around on them. We can eat it inside. Still hot, with cinnamon and butter. Listening to the cracking sky. The peeling rolling rumble. Then thunder like someone is dragging an all too heavy wooden box down the hallway.
So many noises, amplified and clarified by the wet air. Even the rattle of the train. Carried to me on the moist air. A car horn. In my ear.
the chook house 