It rained and it rained and it rained. Piglet told himself that never in all his life, and he was how old – three, was it, or four? – never had he seen so much rain. Days and days and days.

“If only,” he thought, as he looked out of the window, “I had been in Pooh’s house, or Christopher Robin’s house, or Rabbit’s house when it began to rain, then I should have had Company all this time, instead of being here all alone, with nothing to do except wonder when it will stop.” And he imagined himself with Pooh, saying, “Did you ever see such rain, Pooh?” and Pooh saying, “Isn’t it awful, Piglet?” and Piglet saying, “I wonder how it is over Christopher Robin’s way” and Pooh saying, “I should think poor old Rabbit is about flooded out by this time.” It would have been jolly to talk like this, and really, it wasn’t much good having anything exciting like floods, if you couldn’t share them with somebody.

This excerpt from Piglet Is Entirely Surrounded by Water by A.A. Milne is proof that in Britain even the fictional characters spend a great deal of time thinking about, and talking about, the weather. And why shouldn’t they? For such a relatively small country the U.K. has an abundance of weather.

Arrive at any dinner party or other gathering of British people and your first twenty minutes or so are going to be occupied by the discussion of two things – the weather, and which route you all took to arrive at the party. (The secret of a little travelled, well-maintained “B” road is like gold, and routes and travel times are minutely examined and compared – but that’s a whole other blog waiting to be written.) Since arriving on these shores I’ve found myself becoming increasingly sucked into this state of being, this constant watchfulness of the sky, the wind, and the BBC weather forecast.

As a busy housewife trying to dry my laundry on the outside clothesline I gaze anxiously at the clouds and check the BBC. Rain is predicted to begin at 2pm.  Yes, they do get that precise in their forecasts. Will that be enough time to dry the clothes? Is there enough of a breeze? Or is it all an exercise in futility and should I resign myself to using the airing cupboard and the indoor laundry drying rack that folds up like an accordion and always manages to smash my thumbs when I put it away?

For those with dogs you learn to grab each opportunity and scurry out with your furry little friend between showers, and there’s nothing quite like that feeling of smug exultation that comes when you arrive back at your front door and let yourself in just as the deluge begins again. It feels as though you’ve beaten the odds in some diabolical game.

Where I used to live, in the semi-arid region of Eastern Washington, they brag about having 300 days of sunshine a year. Summers are hot and dry, winters are cold and dry, and the average annual precipitation is 5 -7 inches. Where I now live, the county of Wiltshire, is in South West England and it typically has a climate which is milder and wetter than the rest of the country. Average rainfall here is 28 inches. This amount actually came as a surprise to me because when people ask me how I’m adjusting to the weather here in this country they are surprised when I compare it to the three years I lived in Portland, Oregon. It seems remarkably similar. Then I looked up the average rainfall for Portland, Oregon and discovered that their annual rainfall is over 39 inches. That’s a whopping eleven more inches of rain than Wiltshire’s average.

So it isn’t necessarily the amount of rainfall that the UK receives that is the big issue, though last year was a record-breaker on that score, so we won’t count it. What is it, then, that makes U.K. weather so notorious, so difficult, that even Roman soldiers stationed at forts along Hadrian’s Wall wrote letters home asking for more woolly socks?

I think what makes the U.K.’s weather so famous, or should I say infamous, is how variable it is. In layman’s terms, the reason for this is that we are an island situated in an area where five air masses meet. They all come from different directions, and when they converge the drama begins. Change is constant over here, and the speed with which the clouds move across the landscape never ceases to be a source of wonder to me. Sunshine can morph into a rain storm within minutes. One day the air feels like a blast straight from the arctic, the next is as mild as May. Its changeability is what makes things so interesting, and helps explain why weather is such a fascinating topic of conversation here.

A few weeks ago my husband and I were coming home from Birmingham right around sunset. We were driving in a westerly direction, directly into the sun, and it was so blindingly bright that my husband couldn’t even see until he put on his sunglasses. What was so odd about this was that as we were being blinded by the setting sun ahead of us, we were simultaneously being pounded by a torrential rain shower on top of us. The windshield wipers were swishing back and forth at full speed, the de-fogger was blasting air at the windows, and the hammering of the raindrops on the roof of the car blocked out the sound of the radio. And then, over my left shoulder, I saw it – the most amazing, breathtakingly beautiful double rainbow that I’ve ever seen in my life arching across the sky. The colours were as vivid as if a child had drawn it with crayons, and we could see the entire curve of it, from one end to the other.

Within a few minutes we’d driven out of the rain, the rainbow gradually faded, and we were able to drive the rest of the way home in relative calm. Around us we could see dark grey blocks of clouds dropping rain over the Malverns and the Cotswolds. In less than an hour we’d passed through rain, sun, wind, and then the calm, peaceful clarity that comes after a storm.

Yesterday was one of those days of peaceful clarity. The day before we’d had miserable mist and drizzle all day long. I walked the dog in the rain, I had to wipe condensation off the insides of the windows, and I set up the finger-trap folding laundry rack in the sun room. Like Piglet, I was all alone with no one to talk to and it was damp and cold and dreary. Ah, but BBC predicted that tomorrow would be a new day, a completely different story, and so yesterday when I awoke I peeked out my bedroom window to see if the promised sunshine had arrived. Of course it hadn’t because it was five o’clock in the morning and still pitch dark out there. I couldn’t see a thing, so when I let the dog outside in the back garden I stepped out onto the deck. The mists of the previous day had gone, and a few stars were still visible up in the sky. Hope surged within me.

As soon as my husband left for work I abandoned the breakfast dishes, clipped the leash on the dog, and together we set out. The clouds still held some after sunrise colour, like the shiny underside of a seashell – white on the top and glowing amber and soft lavender underneath. The songbirds were jubilantly singing the glorious dawn chorus that is such an integral part of a British morning, and the water was rushing down the stream bed in tiny Preston.  The world looked sparkling and new, washed by the rain and gradually warmed by the rising sun. My dog and I walked briskly together, breathing deeply the cold air, and I marvelled at the incredible beauty of the countryside around me. Everywhere I looked were green fields, green hills, and blue sky. It was a jewel day; the kind of day made even more beautiful because it happens to fall in the midst of a grey, miserable week.

Today the wind is blowing, the sky is a monotonous grey, and it is just plain cold and dismal outside again. The sunshine of yesterday is now just a memory. As I look up and glance out the front window at the wind whipping the laurel hedge I suddenly think of cookies. Yes, cookies, for this is the sort of day that calls for a plate of freshly baked cookies, a warm milky drink, and perhaps a Christie novel. And so supplied I shall be quite content to wait out the rain.

Let the weather do what it will today, for I know that this is Britain, and tomorrow the sun could be shining again.

“Everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it.” – Mark Twain