What a difference a week makes. Last Saturday I was slapping on Factor 50; this Saturday it looks like being waterproofs and wellies. Writing on Thursday night with the rain lashing down and severe weather warnings in place, it’s hard to be optimistic about the chances of seeing the sun. If it continues to chuck it down at the current rate, snorkels may be necessary.

[Pause in writing while I call the husband to investigate a suspicious, regular plopping sound coming from the landing . . . Aargh! There is water dripping through a crack in the ceiling and soaking the carpet. I thought that crack was new, but you can never tell with cracks because you might just not have noticed them before. There must be a tile off somewhere that’s allowing the rain to seep through.]

Anyway, back to the weather for this Saturday, which is predicted to be light showers according to the BBC and heavy showers according to the Met Office website. It’s a shame because York has two big outdoor events scheduled: racing at the Knavesmire and York Proms in Rowntree Park.

At time of writing the races are looking dubious – Friday’s were cancelled and a course inspection is due later to decide whether they’ll be on today – but I’ve had it confirmed to me that the Proms will go ahead, so come prepared. It’s nice weather for ducks (they were swimming around happily in the puddles when I popped down there), but you might want to rethink the evening dress for listening to Elgar.

If you’re a regular reader of this column, you’ll know that the daughter and I are also in a band, albeit of the blazers-and-brass variety. We are not, thankfully, performing at the Proms today. I’m still recovering from our very first outing with Ebor Brass last weekend, which was at the Linton on Ouse festival, a fete that featured, among other attractions, Cowpat Bingo.

(Rowntree Park has a trickier version: Goose Poo Roulette. Basically, you’re lucky if you land on a clean space. Take a chair.)

Cowpat Bingo has been a regular fixture at Linton on Ouse festival for the past ten years, except when the Foot and Mouth outbreak occurred and they had to use a chicken instead. Apparently, that was not so successful.

To play the game, punters pick squares on a grid that represents a paddock into which a cow is released into it at the end of the day. The winner is the person who correctly predicts where the first cowpat lands.

Rocky, the Friesian Holstein steer whose ultimate responsibility this was, was penned near to us, adding a novel bovine accompaniment to some of the numbers and distracting from the tricky bits in Florrie Forde’s Favourites with bouts of musical mooing.

Us newbies were quaking in our hastily shined shoes, but by the time we’d stormed through the Gay Gordons for the second time I began to enjoy myself, largely because I can now manage that ‘tumpty tumpty’ section on the trombone. My Uncle Peter, who was a fan of old-time dancing, used to sing along to it, ‘Auntie Mary stuffed a canary up the leg of her drawers’. I find it helps. (The ditty, not the canary.)

It’s a bit ironic that I always used to feel sorry for brass bands broiling away in the hot sun, and there we were doing just that. Still, better sun than rain, which you can’t play in because it makes the sheet music go soggy.

Still, British resolve doesn’t buckle just because there is water falling from the sky and there are two covered stages in Rowntree Park to keep the Proms performers dry. It’s an imaginative, ambitious endeavour – over 400 local musicians are taking part – and should be a fantastic event, regardless of the weather.

The organisers have got special visual effects planned, including 8m-high columns of flame, dazzling pyrotechnics and 500 jets of water being launched from fountains by the main stage. Given the forecast, the latter might be overkill but you’ve got to admire their spirit.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and sort out another drip. There is water leaking into the lobby next to the kitchen and it’s already half-filled a washing up bowl. It never rains but it pours . . .