Awesome Umbrellas

In Old Street last week I discovered, much to my dismay, that my GCSE English Teacher, Mrs Knight, was quite correct when she told me sternly in class one day:

'Naomi, fail to prepare, prepare to fail.'

At the time I thought to myself, 'What the hell do you know Mrs. Knight, I wing all my essays and because of the power of my awesomeness, I never get less than a B!' However, whilst lost in the rain in Farringdon (I know, Old Street isn't even in Farringdon) I remembered her words. I FAILED to plan my route, deciding, insanely, to rely on the ever unreliable Googlemaps for the Blackberry, I FAILED to have the number of the chap I was meeting and I'd also FAILED to bring an umbrella. Consequently, I was late, flustered and extremely, well, damp.

Which brings me to the moral of today's blog post: ALWAYS TAKE AN UMBRELLA. In films, women look sexy when caught in a rainstorm; in real life, when your mascara is dribbling down your face into your cleavage and your nose is gushing like an Oscar winning actress, you don't look hot. You look like you need a bath. I've trawled the interwebs to find interesting rain-cover options, so you never need face this trauma. 

Not on the high street brings us the Ay Up Petal Umbrella for £25 by a seller named, mysteriously, 'Um...' You'll note it's a sturdy, golfing umbrella design that isn't going to blow inside out at the first breath of wind and has the added bonus of being able to annoy other pedestrians with the size of its canopy. Interesting features are: a fun button that you press to make it open and exclusive illustrations by Tricia Stubberfield. If pink isn't your thing, they also offer an equally lovely Squiddle Umbrella, which comes in light blue or green.

For £28 Cath Kidston offer the Candy Flowers Umbrella, which is apparently 'ideal for wet country walks'.

If you're of a more romantic vein, you can purchase this Heart Shaped Umbrella in red for £19.99 here or in hot pink and black for the same price at Goth shop Kate's Clothing.

Now, these are all really for girls, so, with a bit of hunting, I've found some *perfect* manly umbrellas. Boys, I bring you, the ULTIMATE man's umbrella, designed by Materious, manufactured by Kikkerland, for the humble price of $19.99 for the big one (the one you want) and $25.99 for the compact...THE SAMURAI UMBRELLA. This is awesome, because you can totally tazz about on your rainy commute, secretly pretending to be a Ninja.

Alternatively, there's the Gunbrella which has a definite comic-book vibe about it. At the moment it's reduced to £12.99.  Not strictly for boys, because I also sort of want it too...

Or, if you're more into Star Wars, you could always get a light-up LED Lightsaber Umbrella...The Star Destroyer Umbrella doesn't exist yet, but if it did, it would look like this. Sigh.