WALKING IN THE RAIN
From fresh, earthy scents to sharp, vibrant colours, many sensory pleasures are revealed by wet weather, says Andrew Eames
From fresh, earthy scents to sharp, vibrant colours, many sensory pleasures are revealed by wet weather
Vain gets a bad press these days. The big screen, small screen and the printed word use it as a lazy shorthand for gloom: the hero is at rock bottom, cue the sky turning on the taps to spatter the window in sympathy. It’s what art critic John Ruskin labelled ‘pathetic fallacy’, the attribution of human emotions to nature. And it is a fallacy: rain isn’t gloomy. On the contrary, it is an essential life-giving force that helps nourish our most beautiful landscapes. Think of the emerald green of Ireland, Wales or the Lake District; none of it would exist without rain. Think of the rivers, formed by rain, and the mountains and valleys, carved out by them. Our land has been shaped by what falls from above. In fact, rain only becomes an inconvenience in our city lives, where we’ve become habituated to an existence mostly led indoors. Here, it means crowded buses, wrestling umbrellas and footprints on the carpet. Meanwhile, in the world beyond carpets, a good downpour remains a blessing. A cleanser. A refresher. A natural spa for the skin. And to go out in it is to connect with the cycle of life. William Wordsworth is said to have walked 175,000 miles in his lifetime, mostly in the Lake District, where he admitted rain fell with ‘vigour and perseverance’. But that’s where he got his inspiration; walking, rain or shine, gave him a sense of man’s consonance with nature.
Those who walk regularly will know what I mean when I say wet weather can transform a landscape, external and internal. Physically, it has the effect of shutting off the distance so that you notice what is close to you. Metaphysically, it is an isolating experience that helps you form a close bond with a walking partner or your own thoughts.
CONNECTING WITH THE PAST
I have been a closet pluviophile for years – someone who finds joy and peace of mind in the rain. Years of annual pilgrimage to
my family’s Highland origins have made me accustomed to those mizzling days where the sea glues itself indissolubly to the sky. For me, it is part of the beauty and the majesty of the place. And during those years I have had the occasional transcendent rain experience that has brought me closer to what life must have been like for my ancestors. The most recent was while walking a drovers’ trail into Knoydart, the peninsula on the west coast of Scotland that is home to the most remote community on the British mainland.
Knoydart’s main settlement of Inverie is a 16-mile hike from the nearest road end at Kinloch Hourn. My companion and I started out for the first part in light rain, along the sea loch’s placid shore, watching the great northern divers relishing the flat, still water that sometimes comes with a passing weather front. At Barrisdale the rain steepened and we stepped into a stone bothy to see if it would pass. Inside were two empty sleeping bags, and suddenly I had the feeling that we were sharing time and space with a pair of crofters who had come this way in some previous existence, driving their animals before them.
A LANDSCAPE TRANSFORMED
That feeling strengthened as we pushed on up the winding path to the Mam Barrisdale pass, climbing up into low-lying cloud, with the shoulders of ghostly ridges rising away from us up through the rain, warning their shrouded lords and masters – the peaks above us – of our presence.
Unseen forces started to throw stair rods of water in our direction, turning the path into a roaring torrent. It was wetness beyond the capabilities of modern wet-weather gear, but we were fit and well-prepared, so there was never a doubt about continuing. I could almost feel the presence of those two crofters challenging us; they wouldn’t have had the advantage of Gore-tex and a hot flask, nor the luxury of even contemplating turning back.
Once we’d breasted the pass, the forces relented and the weather started to lift, revealing a glen dressed in ribbons of bridal white from cascading streams. With the return of better visibility and the sight of distant rooftops from the present day, my imagined companions left us, too. By the
time we got to Inverie, the sun was out, the land was flushing green, our clothes were almost dry and we felt reborn.
HILLTOPS AND RIVERSIDES
There’s nothing quite so invigorating as nature being rough and tough like that, but it doesn’t have to be so extreme. I’ve done several wintry walks in the Peak District in recent years, a place where you’re never far from a Bakewell tart and a cup of Earl Grey. One of my favourites starts from Hathersage and proceeds up through grazing and woodland to the open escarpment of Stanage Edge, where the rain comes in sideways. I like this one because of its gradations: the opening salvos partly in forest and dale, then the dash to the full blast of the striding edge, followed by the gentle restorative downward return to tea. My current home also gives me great access to the Thames Valley, where the best stretch is the five miles between Goring and Pangbourne, both of them connected by train. The towpath here is remarkably under-walked, given its location. It’s a bucolic piece of river, even in the rain, when coots in the sedge get on with their watery lives in their drowsy backwater world. And when the path climbs up through the dripping woodland of mature oak and chestnut in the Goring Gap, I relish the smell of composting leaf fall and imagine next spring’s wild flowers germinating deep underground.
From here, all the hubbub of the busy south-east is only a stone’s throw away, but in the rain, on the riverbank, you might as well be in a parallel world.