It's just when you don't have a camera on you...

that you wish you did.

Today was a rainy day, which is unusual. So it was a cool 25 degrees. Brisk.

I just had to dash out to get some bacon for the BLT Bagels I was going to make - a real treat, and inspired by a really good bagel recipe and the fact that I had some cream cheese left over from our birthday cakes.

So I dashed out without my handbag - just carrying my wallet. Hence, I had no camera.

But I wish I did. Instead I'll have to describe (though my skills are terribly lacking) the two images that are stuck in my mind.

Honiara in the rain.

There's a line of 5 guys skirting past me, their blue work men clothes stained with oil. The sky is grey. The rain is wet. The ground, always dirty looking, is now dirty looking and muddy. They each have their own cardboard box as an umbrella. Some have just a side, ripped and left over, held tightly as a feeble attempt to keep out the rain. Others have three quarters of a box perched on their heads like a hat.

Then on the way home, just past "loss coin" (or is it lose coin or loose coin?) the brightness of the umbrella caught my attention first and then the size. The yellow, green, red and blue contrasts with the mud on the ground and the grey in the sky. This young guy's umbrella was a sun umbrella - big enough in diameter to cover 6 people abreast. But this guy walks nonchalantly under his umbrella, ambling along with it slung over his shoulder. It looks ridiculously big - he and his umbrella almost take up half the road. And next to him is a girl - her small umbrella just giving her enough shelter from the rain.

Only in Honiara.