Hi Dave
Yes, I remember the Laindon Desert. I often look at the rainfall radar for old haunts and see that you are regularly close to the edge of significant precipitation. Where we are the high precipitation totals are generated when ENE winds blow towards a line of E -W hills which rise to 1700' or so asl. The radar shows the life cycle of frequent, often heavy, showers forming in a zone from the Berwickshire coast, westwards through south Edinburgh and on into West Lothian. Now, in winter this can turn very interesting...
We've moved house a number of times but the weather has never been a problem, fortunately.
George