The rain rains on the just and the unjust

"Weather snobbery" is certainly one of my favourite things. When a light dusting of snow brings all of Britain to a halt, our Scandinavian brothers and sisters have a good laugh. Equally, when a few raindrops cause Houstonians to get flustered and call off planned events, I like to point out that if we cancelled things for rain in Britain then everything would be cancelled forever.

Then today it happened! It rained, so they closed Pete's school!!

To be fair, there were some "extreme thunderstorm" warnings the evening before; my phone beeped scarily, and then started talking to me to let me know how serious things were. Just east of the city there were reports of hailstones the size of baseballs, and flash floods closing roads. I went to sleep as lightning flashed.

When I awoke, the school district had texted at 4am to say all schools were shut. I opened the blinds expecting to witness the apocalypse, only to find conditions I would generously describe as slightly damp. There wasn't drizzle, or even mizzle, or any of the other 99 words the British have for precipitation.

At first I was excited. Finally a chance to home-school Pete! They teach strange things around here, like "evolution" and the so-called "American War of Independence" and I looked forward to a day of Bible study and lineages of British monarchs. But, on reflection, it seemed easier to take him and his friend Levi to watch Detective Pikachu at the cinema then have Whataburger for lunch. After that, I'm not proud to say I put another movie on for Pete and went for a nap. I did skip my lunchtime cocktail though. Responsible parenting.

Mid-afternoon the sun came out, with not another drop of rain all school-deficient day. The thunderstorm had cleared the air and it was one of the most pleasant days we've had for a while. I thought of all the teachers enjoying a glass of wine on this unexpected long weekend...and then realised what this was really all about. After spending the day with my six-year-old, I can agree they deserve it.

Waiting for Detective Pikachu, which was not as bad as it could have been.

Healthy Dad-lunch.

In tents relationship

According to Hannah, it was time to go camping again. That's twice this month. And while I love smelling of smoke and mud while giving blood transfusions to 10,000 mosquitoes, I did my time under canvas as a Boy Scout.

I communicated my reticence by smiling and dutifully packing the car up. I know who's in charge around here. Off we went to Cagle Recreation Area, in Sam Houston Forest.

It wasn't as bad as all that, because our planned two nights had to be reduced to one due to "dangerous thunderstorms" in the area. Much as I love to tell Americans how weak they are whenever things are cancelled for rain, camping in a forest during a thunderstorm did not seem the sensible way to assert British dominance. So we arrived on a beautiful sunny Saturday morning and only had to wait until the evening for the ground to dry out to pitch the tent.

We were camping with Pete's best friend from school, Elena, together with her Dad J.P. and cousin Laura. Elena and Laura are Chilean, and J.P. works as a translator, so Hannah and I spent the weekend speaking Spanish, mainly by saying English words in a Spanish accent the way Brits have been doing on the Costa Del Sol since the 70's. Our friends found this consistently hilarious and I know will be asking to camp with us again soon.

Pete and Elena have already decided they're going to get married, although given they're six-years-old and we don't live in Alabama, this isn't likely to happen soon. Their full-on excitement and gleeful craziness whenever they're together is very endearing...for about five minutes. I had flashbacks to when Hannah and I met at uni, and would like to apologise belatedly to all our friends there.

But the weekend was a huge success, and we once again survived in the harsh and unforgiving environment of a Texan campsite (the hot showers only stayed on for five minutes before you had to push the button again! Shocking). Thankfully we're now into summer, which means even Hannah demurs from nights in a tent, waking up glued to your sleeping mat with your own evapourated sweat. Maybe it's time to buy a caravan.

I don't think this tree came down the night before we arrived, but I'm pleased we avoided the possibility.

Oh look, some more incredibly dangerous reasons to camp in Texas!

Pete and Elena, star-crossed by a shared love of Pokemon.

There's only one way to toast a marshmallow!

Have bourgeois liberal arts parents, get bourgeois liberal arts children.

Cooling off in the lake.

 End of camp selfie, and amazingly we don't look too filthy!

Cute. In small doses.