Our first 24 hours in Plymouth and the rain has not stopped. This gives me the chance to stitch together three unrelated rain stories of the last couple of weeks.

Rain Story 1 comes from Chicago. An epic storm heralded our first full day in the city. Since self guided walking tours were the flavour of our city visits, some compromises were required. Let me just say, the worlds largest Starbucks was not on our original itinerary, nor was it somewhere we aspired to visit. But when rain is running down necks and saturating hems, making even the most effective waterproof ineffective, desperate measures must be taken.

As Starbucks go it was huge and as a customer I was somewhat difficult. I am much more of an independent Coffee shop kind of woman. When in the biggest Starbucks in the world I drank iced tea.

Which leads me rather nicely to Rain Story 2, later on the same day. We took ourselves off to a district known, most recently, as ‘Boys Town’ now rebranded as a more inclusive North Halsted,not in search of boys but on a quest to find the Chicago Diner, a strictly vegetarian restaurant established in 1985. The Diner deserves a blog of its own but the rain that fell just after we left the diner was of biblical proportions, so much so it drove us into a ‘Boys’ bar. Not exclusively so but predominantly. The only reason for not letting us in was a lack of ID for age purposes. The barman however allowed us in because we looked every inch of 22, Ice Cocktails were bought and we settled in the window seat. Maybe not our best move for the bar to attract clientele but we were shameless in grabbing the best seat to people watch. It turns out that complicated cocktails including tequila in their blend are awfully good for weary feet and knees. They also set you up remarkably well with the Chutzpah needed to use the gender neutral/inclusive washrooms including both urinals and cubicles. There were very stern words about two persons not using the cubicles at the same time, but for some reason I got no offers to share and could go about my comfort break in solitary confinement with no fear of rule breaking.

In other rule breaking news, we made no attempt to take guns into the bar. May I say that in Toronto we were also well behaved and made no attempt to take cannabis into bars that requested us not to.

Which brings us to Rain Story 3. The return to Plymouth. For the last two weeks the big decision of the day has been where and when to get submerged in water. T-shirt, shorts and flipflops. First full day in Plymouth, DryRobes, socks! DM boots and steamed up spectacles, how to not get submerged in water!

Phew! Back in the right time zone but only just sneaking this out just before midnight…