Signs of rain...

I spent most of my childhood in Booker Avenue, Liverpool. If you turned left out of the door and kept going, half an hour later you would be down at Otterspool Promenade overlooking the browny-grey swirling tides of the River Mersey. Once, when I was an unhappy, overemotional teen, I rushed down there intent on drowning myself. Fortunately, the tide was out and I didn't fancy landing with a splat in the filthy mud and wallowing like a hippo till someone rescued me!

We always knew when rain was on its way as we could glimpse the top of Moel Famau in the distance, the cairn on top looking like a nipple on a gently rounded breast.

Where I live now, we have another sign of approaching rain - the smell of coffee from the Nestle factory in Hayes, Middlesex. In this week's local paper, there was the sad news that the factory is going to close down, with the loss of 230 jobs in an already run-down and underprivileged area. Yet not so long ago, it was reported that the company were going to pump money into the site and improve it. It's a magnificent art deco building and I would rather see it turned into flats than pulled down.

Imagine what the views from the penthouse would be like. You'd be able to see right over the Chilterns. Think I'll put my name down now!