It’s raining in the UK today and I sit facing the window at work, meaning I see lots of cool Brighton-ians walking around with their funky umbrellas. Obviously, having no impulse control whatsoever, I ran straight to the computer at lunch time and started picking out one of my very own. My boring old black one is (a) a bit broken from the seaside winds and (b) boring. Did I mention that it’s boring?

The umbrellas on brolliesgalore.co.uk are not boring. (Do people outside the UK use the word “brollies”? If not, I recommend adopting it – it’s a quaint-yet-quirky word in my opinion. But I digress.)

There are lots of funky umbrellas on the site – and they cost a little more than the ones you get at the supermarket checkout – but we most certainly need something bright to cheer us up on supposedly-summer days like this. Looking at my choice (this lovely multi-colour effort that only just got the edge over the Cath Kidson beauties), I reckon it will be sturdy enough to combat the inevitable gusts of winds that it will have to face. Plus, I sort of have this fantasy that I might take off whilst holding it and it would safely fly me wherever I want to go.