thank you, woofgang. Goodness, shaney, you seem to be surrounded by it. Actually,the government has been sending me some pooh sticks which I should send back but I need to find out first whether oscopies have any effect on them (I suspect not but don't want to be sending off false negatives).
Woo, after all my complaining, the Met Office have finally sent me a downpour, and if they'd given me some warning I might not have been caught out in it, but they got the time wrong as usual.