We find the aesthetic appeal of the out-of-doors irresistible in the rain or directly after the rain when everything is drenched and water-slicked, and texture and colour are so very different from how they appear when everything is dry and there's a sunny atmosphere. Not that we don't appreciate the texture and colour under dry conditions, but there's an especial vibrancy to growing things when they have been washed by the rain, even a sense of renewed vigour.

Though Jackie and Jillie would far prefer to remain indoors if it's raining, or even if the rain has stopped because they don't want to get their little paws wet, when we go out under those conditions they will unfailingly follow us. As they did this morning after breakfast when we ventured out with them under light showers.

They soon forgot their aversion to rain and romped about the backyard, and then the front gardens, ramping up their energy levels as they gradually became more and more wet. When they're wet they become unbelievably energized and that's just what happened this morning as they raced about, one after the other, wrestling and taunting one another to greater acrobatic excesses.

My husband always looks at the composters when he goes out in the morning, to see if the raccoons have been around during the night. Sometimes he hears them moving the lid off the composters and knows they'll have been around; he pays attention because he always replaces the lids, to cover the compost, though we don't at all mind raccoons moving them aside, when they're intent on seeing what's available for them to eat, and there usually is something.

He was surprised to see movement among the items of deteriorating kitchen waste. In this heat and humidity it doesn't take long before what is taken out to the compost begins to decompose. And there was a baby mouse -- or it could have been a baby rat. It was foraging about, and it was drenched and it was hard to tell whether it was fine or desperate to get out of the enclosed space. So my husband gently placed a board in a slant from the top of the composting material to the lip of the composter in case the tiny thing needed help extricating itself from a difficult situation.

Then we went on to admire the gardens, glistening with rain that kept gently descending.