Martins in the Rain

Trudging home from the shops this morning through steady hard rain, I looked up at the sky to see if there was any prospect of a break - there wasn't. But there were familiar shapes gliding merrily through the air up there, with the odd flutter of the wingtips and frequent looping detours. It was the house martins again - just like last year, but on a smaller scale. I saw perhaps three dozen passing over, which might have been the tail end of a larger flypast, I suppose. Oddly, they were heading roughly northeast, but this might have been to get ahead of the weather front before turning south and west... Whatever they were up to, they lifted the spirits of one sodden onlooker beneath.