Rain - Reasons to be Cheerful

Today in Yorkshire we've had torrential rain for most of the day, and I gather it has been even worse in some parts of the country. I spent the afternoon trailing round town with my son, looking for the last few bits and pieces he needed to take back to school with him and getting very wet in the process. Even with an umbrella, it wasn't very pleasant to be outdoors.

But it looks as if this extremely wet weather is set to continue for the foreseeable future, so we might as well put it to good use. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, as they say. Let's think about some reasons why we should be cheerful about this rainy weather and grateful for it. Doing so will certainly stretch our imagination, so let's treat it as a warm-up exercise to increase our creativity.

I'll get you started with a couple of fairly obvious reasons:

We can be grateful for the rain because...

...plants need water to grow
...it will keep the reservoirs topped up.

It's your turn now. Try to come up with ten reasons why we should be grateful for the rain. Not only will the activity develop your creativity, it should also make you feel a bit more cheerful and happy to be alive, rather than miserable and fed-up.

Word Games for Everyday Life

I was driving along the other day with my family when we spotted a driving school car which had the school's name on the top of the vehicle. It was 'Pass with Pete'.

'It's a good job he wasn't called Fred,' said my husband, 'or else the driving school might have been "Fail with Fred"'.

At this point we all came up with more and more outrageous names for a driving school based on people's names. We got as far as 'Carnage with Colin' and 'Massacre with Miranda.' It's amazing what you can do with alliterations!

We all had a good laugh anyway, so it brightened up what might have been a rather routine journey home.

When you're driving or walking around this week, see if you can spot any signs with alliterations like 'Pass with Pete' and set yourself the challenge of coming up with some unorthodox variations. You never know, the game might even spark off some ideas for a short story.

Have fun!