Friendly Manitoba: Weather You Can Stand It Or Not

It's Fall now. In Manitoba that means rains and mist and much passionate wooshing about of leaves in the wind and there are few things that will brand you an outsider faster than your reactions to the local weather. I tend to carry an umbrella when the weather is foul, partly because I think an umbrella adds the touch of class that a hoodie will never match and partly because some day there will come the ideal convergence of sidewalk, gutter, puddle and lamp post for a moment of epic Gene Kelly perfection. I will also wear extra splashy, super sassy, lace-up rubber boots at the slightest provocation.

Seriously. They're plaid and go up to here.

Many times in Manitoba have I been told "you mustn't be from around here." More than in any other province apart from B.C., where for practical hurricane related reasons, an umbrella is really just a sacrifice to the capricious gods of wind and shingling.

I'm just saying that in general, I like to be ready in case of rain. Apparently this attitude is considered frivolously light-hearted and suspicious. Such things are not to be tolerated in a province where the population is so endearingly dependent on their steady intake of Vitamin D that I have seen people stop in their tracks to glare at fluffy-duckling clouds on a summer's day, in much the same way one reacts to line jumpers and people who talk during the movie.

I am not going to change, because clearly I am killing it when it comes to living life, but I am thinking I need to buy many more umbrellas in many more obnoxious colours.

Maybe plaid, to match the boots.