Accepting drinks from men in two-toned shirts and rugby shorts

Residents have been in a frenzy of gratitude for the blessing of rain this past week. The long dry spell in the area came to its end, and contrary to the gloomy presence of clouds there were people dancing in the wet streets. 
Social media were full of references to the rainfall, with even the normally non-communicative users proclaiming their joy. 
All of a sudden the local economy started ticking over, as every farmer – knowing he will have a crop to work with this season – decided to celebrate. In the pubs they were buying rounds, drinking double brandies instead of beer – smiles on weather-beaten faces all round. The conversations revolved around how many millimetres of rainfall each one recorded, and which crops would be sprouting at which time. 
In the supermarkets farmers’ wives were stocking up on luxuries, such as toilet paper with puppies on and pre-peeled and -chopped butternut instead of whole. The more negative ones among us were lamenting their recent sprinkler attachment purchases, and moaning about how they will have to call their gardeners back to work to mow their lawns. Sunday morning was already filled with the sound of lawnmowers – normally an irritation, but not after the long dry spell of late it was music to our ears. 
However, during a recent visit to the coast, the differences in opinions of the weather were glaringly obvious. Durbanites in the rain – what a depressing thought for them all! People could be heard moaning about how they felt ‘trapped’ under the clouds, and how, with the holidays coming up, they felt that the ‘Transvaal tourists’ wouldn’t be coming to spend their Gauteng Rands on buckets and spades and nets and beach towels. 
Their worries were needless, as it turns out… The rain left just ahead of the influx of vacationers, and here they are in all their sunburnt glory, playing beach cricket and touring the harbour, binocs at faces in the hope of spotting a dolphin. 
The beachfront pubs are full of hairy okes with no shoes on and ‘poppies’ with real tans on top of fake tans, and kids running around covered in ice-cream. It just goes to show – one man’s storm is another’s sunshine. In Noord-Natal we’ll take what we can get, accept drinks from men in two-toned shirts and rugby shorts, and pray that the drought of the past doesn’t turn into the flood of the future…