There’s a break between cloudbursts and I take the gap between them to catch the afternoon train.

Outside, the day is a black, white, grey and silver composition; a filtered artwork – except it’s alive.

Oyster-coloured shreds of cloud trail along the edges of an elephant-grey mountain; silver pools of rainwater glint beside slate-coloured streets and under the dun, ivory and black shapes of sleeping naked trees.

Then there’s the smell of rain, both fallen and yet-to-fall: cold and clean, it feels like I’m breathing in life.