The 80 degree days finally gave up and we’re having a rainy day in the 60s. Bliss for someone who relishes gloomy weather.

I’ve managed two moseys today, both 2 1/2 blocks and back home. It was sprinkling when I started out, just after 7 a.m. Sunrise is getting lazier by the day. The Notre Dame Rose Window umbrella was my choice, since it’s large enough to really make a difference. 

My Favorite Guy went along just after 3:00 this afternoon. He’s not a fan of umbrellas so I grabbed the smaller plaid one. My souvenir of Edinburg, Scotland!

The souvenir brolly from Edinburg, 1989

It dawned on me that both umbrellas are souvenirs of a couple of incredible overseas trips. Guy’s sister and her husband (Lois and David) lived in Kings Lynn, England, during the 1980s, while David was a chemical engineer with Dow Chemical. We did touristy things with them, then Guy, Dan (age 14), and I headed for Cambridge and Scotland for a few days on our own. It rained while we were in Scotland, so a plaid umbrella became my remembrance of Edinburgh. Brolly, according to the sales slip.

The other trip was in October of 1997, with Mom and her sister, Aunt Darlene to be the first in the family to see where their younger brother, Danny Wilson, is buried in an American Cemetery in Eastern France. The travel agent walked us through choosing what else we’d like to see on the trip, since it would likely be the only one for Mom and Darlene, farm widows in their late seventies. So we also visited Paris and London! Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, Versailles, the Tower of London, Bath, Stonehenge. We also spent time in Bruges and Brussels, Belgium.

It was a good thing we’d packed umbrellas. It rained while we had our own memorial service for Lt. Daniel S. Wilson, at the Lorraine American Cemetery near St. Avold, France. It rained throughout Belgium, and it was raining when we arrived in London after dark.

It also rained the day we toured Bath and Stonehenge, where another tourist took a photo of the four of us, one of our favorite photos of the trip. We all framed copies of it.

Darlene (Wilson) Scar, Doris (Wilson) Neal, Joy (Neal) Kidney, Guy Kidney. Stonehenge, October 14, 1997

When we got back to Iowa, Mom found a Notre Dame Rose Window in a Smithsonian catalogue and bought one for herself. She also got one for Aunt Darlene and for us!

When Dan was little, a rainy day with no lightning was an invitation to go for a walk. Once when he was grown, Dan admitted that he enjoyed when it rained the first day of school. He was the only one in a good mood! I guess he got that from him mom.

And walkin’ in the rain is especially charming under a brolly with a story.