G.K. Chesterton wrote a whole article on the topic of rain. He addresses it partly to the strict teetotalers of his era, around 1910. It rejoices my heart that I have rainy weather in which to enjoy this piece, from which I have gleaned generous excerpts for the benefit of my (possibly also romantic) readers. More installments to come soon.
As for the fascination of rain for the water drinker, it is a fact the neglect of which I simply cannot comprehend. The enthusiastic water drinker must regard a rainstorm as a sort of universal banquet and debauch of his own favourite beverage.
Think of the imaginative intoxication of the wine drinker if the crimson clouds sent down claret or the golden clouds hock. Paint upon primitive darkness some such scenes of apocalypse, towering and gorgeous skyscapes in which champagne falls like fire from heaven or the dark skies grow purple and tawny with the terrible colours of port. All this must the wild abstainer feel, as he rolls in the long soaking grass, kicks his ecstatic heels to heaven, and listens to the roaring rain. It is he, the water drinker, who ought to be the true bacchanal of the forests; for all the forests are drinking water. Moreover, the forests are apparently enjoying it: the trees rave and reel to and fro like drunken giants; they clash boughs as revellers clash cups; they roar undying thirst and howl the health of the world. 
All around me as I write is a noise of Nature drinking: and Nature makes a noise when she is drinking, being by no means refined. If I count it Christian mercy to give a cup of cold water to a sufferer, shall I complain of these multitudinous cups of cold water handed round to all living things; a cup of water for every shrub; a cup of water for every weed? I would be ashamed to grumble at it. As Sir Philip Sidney said, their need is greater than mine—especially for water.
–From “The Romantic in the Rain”
I took the pictures from the window of our car one summer afternoon a few years ago, as my husband and I drove through pouring rain in the High Sierra. I took a video also as we rode along with our friends, somewhat hushed by the splashing of so much water and the blub-blub of the windshield wipers. I wish I had the ability to post the video with those sounds, and the sound of his voice, but the picture here at the bottom is a kind of screen shot from it.
ce she moved from here seven years ago. It was an overcast day and the ocean was roiling like dirty dishwater, but there was no wind, and the air was as fresh as could be. Rivulets were running from the cliffs to the shore, and the beach was covered with twigs and seaweed and all kinds of storm “trash.” Gulls and sandpipers and another kind of water bird — or were they merely junior gulls? — and a crow were enjoying all the new moisture in the air and on the sand.
over my tea indoors all day; strolling on the beach was not too taxing, nor was driving to the coast, though it took longer than expected because of flooding and detours. I took Lilly to the Birds Café and we ate clam chowder while looking over the grayness of the wet landscape and bay.
In addition to being one of the twelve great feasts of the church year, today is the day we remember St. Basil the Great, and after Liturgy this morning we gathered in the fellowship hall to eat some St. Basil bread, of which we had four loaves, including one gluten-free. The Greek word for this is Vasilopita, and many traditions have grown up around it over the centuries. I like this telling of the story linking it to St. Basil: 
Gladsome Lights 