Welcome to a beautifully wet Sydney. The plants are drinking and we have a gentle reprieve from the coming blistering summer.

Now is the time to celebrate and enjoy what Heaven is sending us: Sweet mana in the form of rain.

To celebrate I have started my day with a lightly brewed cup of Japanese matcha and looked through a book about Chado, the Japanese tea ceremony.

Long ago, I was fortunate enough to witness the ceremony firsthand and today would be the perfect day to do Chado, with all the grace and refined dignity that it deserves. I am ready to be a part of it, to learn bestilled tranquility, to savour every moment as if it is the last.

In the meantime, I will enjoy my daring adventurous story of samurai and bushi-no-geisha to the sound of rain, the taste of fresh wet grassy Japanese matcha and the atmosphere of my local ramen-house that makes the best Japanese katsu curry on rice in my area.