It´s been pissing rain here on and off for over a week. Rain, rain, rain. Please don´t think I´m complaining because here, in the arid south of Spain, rain is manna from heaven. We had been worried here that reservoir levels have been steadily falling and local farmers were thinking that prospects were bleak.  Now these guys must be joyfully beckoning each dark bank of rainclouds, as farmers have been doing for longer than anyone can remember.

On the Guadalhorce we had some pollution in the autumn and in certain stretches large numbers of fish came belly up. These bolstering rains will hopefully flush out or at least dilute the effects of these pollutants and breathe new energy into the river.

It rained in the South Island of New Zealand on the 9th March 1999. The farmers there were jubilant then, just as our farmers are now, because those downpours put an end to a prolonged period of drought. I remember this because I saw the rain flow down the window of the delivery room where my daughter Pippa was born. On the radio there were interviews with euphoric farmers and it was hard to get away from the thought that the rains were finally delivering on their promise renewed growth to them, as well as to a new life for Catriona and me.

The birth of a baby, at least in our immediate experience, seems to follow a lengthy wait; protraction followed by contraction. For the Mum childbirth must be rather like the way war has been described by soldiers: long periods of boredom followed by bursts of terror!

For hours the midwife and Catriona and I waited for Pippa to show up. We talked about this and that. Naturally enough  I spoke to the midwife about trout fishing. If I speak to anyone for any reasonable length of time this is bound to happen sooner or later. The hours passed, one after the other, and throughout the unremitting rain pelted against the window and the radio people dragged to the microphone one farmer after another.

It´s hard to hold it against babies that they should be so reluctant to come out into the world. If they knew how much crap they were expected to put up with during their lifetimes they might decide that it might be better to snuggle up, warm and safe, exactly where they were.

But of course Pippa did put in an appearance in the end. Here in Spain the expression for giving birth is “dar a luz”; to give the light. Pippa saw the light in the district hospital in Invercargill while the South Island was doused in rain.

That was 19 years ago today.

Happy birthday Pippa.

 

Family

Here is Pippa on the right along with Leo, Catriona and myself.