St. Swithun was a Saxon Bishop of Winchester and legend says that as he lay on his deathbed, he asked to be buried out of doors, where he would be trodden on and rained on. For nine years, his wishes were followed, but then, the monks of Winchester attempted to remove his remains to a splendid shrine inside the cathedral on 15 July 971. According to legend there was a heavy rain storm either during the ceremony or on its anniversary.

This led to the old wives' tale that if it rains on St Swithun’s Day (July 15th), it will rain for the next 40 days in succession, and a fine 15th July will be followed by 40 days of fine weather.

However, according to the Met Office, this old wives' tale is nothing other than a myth. It has been put to the test on 55 occasions, when it has been wet on St Swithun’s Day and 40 days of rain did not follow.

I think I mentioned before that we’d had 43 consecutive days of rain here. Well that sequence came to an end a week or so ago, for 1 day.

Since when it’s rained every day. My office is on the west side of Houston and looks over towards the city. I watched a fabulous cloud formation pass by this morning, some of the blackest clouds I’ve ever seen. Have a look at this...

I’m winding down a bit today, it’s been a hectic week of meetings, presentations and more research into the US oil industry. Tomorrow T & I are off to New Orleans to party for the weekend.  We’re booked into NOLA restaurant for dinner on Friday, last time we ate there T said it was the best duck dish she’d ever had - Hickory-Roasted Duck with Whiskey-Caramel Glaze, Buttermilk Cornbread Pudding, Haricot Verts - Fire Roasted Corn Salad, Natural Jus and Candied Pecans.

They have big, brick, wood burning ovens that give a unique flavour to their Creole & Cajun cooking. Wonderful stuff.

We’ve decided to hire a couple of bikes on Saturday and cycle around the French Quarter and the Marigny, a much more interesting part of town. At the risk of repeating myself, I think NOLA is a great city with a fabulous atmosphere, we always enjoy our trips there and I’m sure this weekend will be no different. Weather permitting.

There’s a plaque on a wall in NOLA outside a building that used to be the headquarters of the Banque Des Citoyens De La Louisiane. The bank issued ten-dollar notes, labeled "Dix" (French for "ten") on the reverse side. The notes came to be known as "Dixies" by English-speaking southerners, and the area around New Orleans and the Cajun-speaking parts of Louisiana came to be known as "Dixieland".

Amazing what you learn!

You’d be surprised who reads these blogs. I am. I was contacted the other day by a lady from Houston who had read my blog about unconventional gas and was researching the same subject. She was also a keen photographer and left me a very nice message in my photography site guestbook. At least I know I’m not talking to myself ALL the time.

Oh well, that’s lunchtime over, off to one of our other offices this afternoon, down in Stafford, just to the south west of Houston, weather permitting.

I thought the British were obsessed about the weather but it’s headline news on the local TV stations here, and we can get detailed weather forecasts for our part of town from a number of websites, my favourite being this one.

Obsessed!