Life is what happens…

..when you're busy daydreaming.

As is customary in this country, the weather is nice when you least expect it, and instead of April showers, we’re treated to glorious sunshine, and the minute May comes skipping along, it all changes. It’s been pissing it down all day.

It started off promisingly enough.

I’d always wanted to go to a place called Sandbanks in Dorset, home of a supposedly glorious beach and rather a lot of rich people, so we headed there in Rachael’s car after leaving the venue we’d stayed at on Friday night for a friend's wedding. Despite my hangover being kinder than usual and echoes of the last song and memories of the conga that accompanied it fading fast in my head, I wasn’t quite ready to take over my driving responsibilities, though, just yet.

After wading through the deep sand to get to a cafe on the (admittedly lovely) beach and a brief stroll, we left after just an hour, the sparkle from the morning sun on the water dimming as heavy grey clouds bullied their way across the sky. We put the roof down anyway as the sun was still out as we drove away, but no sooner had we hit the motorway, the heavens opened. We didn’t get wet, though – the windscreen sheltered us from the rain. It was surreal driving down the motorway with the top down; I was careful not to look around me at the other drivers because I knew we’d get some bemused looks, but part of me was enjoying being a little rebellious. It was only rain after all. And we still looked cool in it.

Then I saw something strange. I looked off to my right and saw a glimpse of a middle-aged couple standing together by the roadside across the motorway, staring up at a temporary road sign.

‘Time for Change’ it said, a familiar slogan for the Conservatives’ election campaign. Nothing odd about the sign, but the way they just stood there in the rain as if searching for meaning, perhaps embodying the entire nation’s state of mind about the forthcoming election made me think. Of course they may well just have broken down and been looking skywards for inspiration, and the sign just happened to be there, but I read the situation as having some other meaning entirely. I saw what I wanted to see, I guess.

Is it time for change? I didn’t realise we needed one. But then again, I personally like my politics like my wine: "A.B.C."

It’s finally stopped raining and I’m sitting on the sofa with Come Dine With Me on in the background. Had I made a different choice last night, I would just have been leaving London’s Excel having been turned away from X Factor, about now, after a good 11 hours standing in a queue. The truth is, I just couldn’t be arsed and today’s incessant rain only made me feel better about my decision.

I don’t like change much, if I’m honest - I'll come up with any excuse to avoid it. I feel restless, though, but that's quite usual for me. I find it difficult to live in the moment when I should be more than happy with my lot and instead spend most of my time daydreaming. As the day closes on yet another missed opportunity as quickly as we passed the couple standing in the rain, I’ll focus my efforts instead on getting my wife to agree to watching a cheery foreign film, maybe The Diving Bell and The Butterfly or Downfall (yes, the one with that Hitler scene was on offer in HMV), and wondering what tomorrow’s day-off will bring.

I know where I'd rather be.