It is a shared occupation that indicates a civilised view of what's important. No hate-filled racist ever said he liked walking in the rain.

There is some scientific support. The air in the rain really is sweeter.

In 1964, two Australian scientists published a study in the Nature journal explaining how rain releases a soothing oil in some plants. The phemonenon was called "petrichor". When we walk in the rain the air really is perfumed.

Going out in Canberra this morning is a reminder of what we already knew.

There is something very reassuring about walking with an umbrella, under the gentle rain from heaven.

And gentle the rain has been so far. Even the torrents overnight were unthreatening. There was no frightening lightning or high wind.

Of course, you need the right clothes but the world seems more benign in a walk around Lake Burley Griffin with that pitter-patter on the umbrella.

Maybe it's some sort of resonance with the womb - the feeling of being encased in a protective environment.

One of the joys of walking in the rain this late spring day is that it avoids mask confusion. As masks become optional (but desirable) in the ACT, some on the circular walk wear them and some don't.

There is a frisson of tension. Do mask-wearers shame the bare-faced with a disapproving look? Are the bare-faced being defiant? Either way, fewer walkers except for the dedicated and determined means the conflict is diminished.

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It is true that those facing floods as the gentle rain turns into angry downpours will not feel the same joy. Emergency services workers are already trepidous in parts of New South Wales as the creeks start to overflow.

But let's look on the brighter side in Canberra. You can be a reservoir-half-full or a reservoir-half-empty kind of guy.

For many of us, the rain is a delight, but the pot-half-empty people are already seeing a downside: heavy rain this spring means lush grass in the summer and that increases the abundance of bushfire fuel.

Leave that for another day. In the meantime, we should enjoy the wet.

There is, by the way, some scientific backing to the idea that walking in leafy surroundings helps mental health.

It's true that the study by psychologists at Stanford University in California didn't specifically include rain, but it did compare groups of city dwellers who walked in green nature and those who walked the urban streets.

The scientists concluded: "We show in healthy participants that a brief nature experience, a 90-minute walk in a natural setting, decreases both self-reported rumination and neural activity in the subgenual prefrontal cortex, whereas a 90-minute walk in an urban setting has no such effects on self-reported rumination or neural activity."

Translation: walking with trees around you makes you feel better.

They should have tested for walking in the rain - but we know what the answer would be: it makes us feel better.