When the Rain Comes, Budapest.

Rain. For most of the day. Unusual in this land-locked, dry country. It has been very warm for this time of the year. In Germany the other day I felt I had landed in Siberia compared to the climate here.

Hungary is not used to showers and squalls. The rain falls straight down in big plops. You notice every drop, the gathering puddles and ripples.

People here seem to dislike rain...they don't give out about it much as we do in Ireland but there is no sense of rain being part of their life, their culture. In fact the opposite is true. The hot summer is far more relevant to Hungarian life than rain ever could be. Budapest in August is simply intolerable, it is so hot. Hence, a sudden evacuation to Lake Balaton, to the sanctuary of the shady hut, the long balmy lángos evenings washed down with red wine. (yes it's a bit of a cliche but it does happen).

Lángos is made with yoghurt or cream, fried, topped with cheese and can also be served with a soup. Our local restaurant here does a fantastic lángos and garlic soup! The word comes from láng, which means flame, and it was originally baked in ovens.

But to return to rain for a moment: Ireland's greatest asset? Without doubt it is the rain, the moisture in the fresh air, the wind singing its wintry song on November nights against the bedroom window. How else could the grass become that shade of green!

Longfellow captured the magic of rain far better than I can when he wrote in Midnight Mass for the Dying Year:

And the hooded clouds, like friars,
Tell their beads in drops of rain
And patter their doleful prayers;
But their prayers are all in vain,
All in vain!

As for the photo I had a choice of three. The first was a self-portrait taken in the water-fountain you see above (it wasn't very good!), the second a portrait of Fehér Zoltán, one of Hungary's latest x faktor stars, singing in a local shopping centre (about whom I will say nothing but refer you to You Tube,

or, thirdly, this one of two nice ladies beside one of Budapest's many beautiful water fountains. Time for umbrellas again!