So. It’s wet outside. Not that nice fresh rain. Not misty, makes things damp before the sun comes out rain.
Not even rain that comes down so hard it bounces back into the air, getting your socks wet..
No. Its worse. It’s evil, directed. Almost intelligent. It’s that type of rain that finds any chink in your armour.
It will change direction without warning, attacking you from another direction. It will force its way in through zips. It sneaks down into layers below.
It will swirl into anything open, whether your car boot, rucksack or eyes. It turns the most incredible walk into a monotonous trudging, squelchy, test of physical and mental endurance.
If you’re camped out in it (and your tent can stand the wind) you’ll spend equal amounts of time drying fingers on your trouser leg that have had to handle something else that’s wet and wondering if that’s a fine mist being forced through the walls of the tent, or just your imagination?
You’ll wonder why you do this.. Right at that moment it may well not be worth it. You’re cold, damp and miserable, while your mates are at home or in the pub.
They probably didn’t rip their new £200 coat on a fence going out. They won’t wake up to find that the walls of their house has flicked water at them all night so everything is drenched - and your clean pants are out, on top of your bag ready for the morning.
No. But when you do get home, something magical happens. The worse it was, the better the story is in the telling. Your mate got lost, drunk on the way home?
But you? You were lost in the driving rain, in zero visibility, knowing there is a 1,000 foot drop.. Just meters away from where you were stood.... Back home, the damp pants become an anecdote.
The leaking tent? time to air all the gear at home and perform ‘essential maintenance’ requiring a trip to the local gear shop.
So next time you look out of the window and despair, don’t for get this trip. Mother nature gave all she could throw at you – and you won.
