5am. I wake up, treating myself to a later start to the day than yesterday's PAD referred to. Even then, I'm awake half an hour before the alarm. I hear the rain, heavy and constant, beating on the bedroom windows. Had it been a weekend, it would have been a relaxing sound; I could have pulled the covers back over me and dozed off to its rhythm.

But it wasn't and so I get out of bed and perform the morning's ablutions. The refreshing splash of the shower, the tedium of shaving, the donning of clothes which don't quite fit right as I've recently dropped a few kilograms.

It's still raining. I decide to leave the Olympus at home and do a lunch time shot with the 300D since I don't want to have to lug the Olympus to the office and home in heavy rain, jeopardising its recently purchased electronics.

I walk to the station, and get drenched. My head and torso are dry, my sleeves and trousers saturated, my bag damp. Leaving the Olympus was a good call.

I get off the train, and walk to the bus stop. It's still raining.

I look out of the window during the course of the morning. It's still raining.

I have lunch in the cafeteria and then venture outside. It's still raining, 8 hours later. Hard. And windy to boot. This is the first day of summer, but La Nina, the cyclical wet season that operates across the Pacific, is due to hold sway this summer and it's going to be a wet one by all forecasts.

The 300D normally has my 28-135 IS mounted but that's on the 40D because the 24-105 is still in the camera hospital, though I was notified yesterday that it's ready to pick up at a cost of $495. That notwithstanding, I can't wait to see it home because the original kit lens is on the 300D. "How bad can it be?", I thought when I put it on, "It saw me through the first year or two of shooting, right?

Getting the images into Photoshop answered that question. In the immortal words of Ron Weasley, "Bllllloody Hell!!" This, believe it or not, is the best of them.

Yes, the 24-105 can't be back soon enough, which is why this image is going to be uploaded on the back of Thursday's with the hope that few, if any, people will actually see it.