summer water

as has now been custom for the past few weeks, we went to play football with a few of the guys from the office after work. Oddly enough what was originally a contingent of 14 (based on yesterday's response to the email asking for participants) soon turned into 10 as the weather got uncooperative this afternoon, until finally it was 6 of us in the lobby at 6:40pm. Which isn't nearly enough to organize a football game, so we quickly found another bunch of guys who were playing near our usual Speaker's Corner area. As soon as we started our game a torrential downpour started, and we thus found ourselves playing in conditions reminiscent of mid-November Northern Scotland weather. Which is actually pretty damn fun, once you get past the first 5 minutes and your shirt has become like a soggy second skin. The other guys were pretty good too, so there was a bit of a challenge compared to our usual intra-office matchups. And you know how us guys like our competition. So there were plenty of sliding tackles, wild shots and even several made passes. The score was kept, but that wasn't really the point.
And when we finished playing, and the skies opened up for some much-deserved sunshine, a massive rainbow appeared in the Hyde Park horizon, as fitting an ending as ever could be. Well actually not technically an ending, since I then went back to work to finish some things up. But at least for 90 minutes all the tedious stuff was forgotten, just a bunch of grown-up kids in the park, playing footy in the rain.