The Pennine Way Shakedowns 4 Rain

There is rain in the forecast, and it sounds to me like it’s raining as I wake.

I do like the sound of rain when I’m in a tent. There’s a real connection to the world we live in. You can feel the energy in the world.  I’ve always loved being in the rain, just as long as I’m not getting wet any way, this though, is different.

For any relationship to work, you have to work at it.  This is the bit that people miss when they go networking, and they don’t get it.  You won’t leave rich on one visit; the countryside is the same. If we’re going to rekindle the relationship we should have, are supposed to have, with nature, we have got to put the time in and be open.

The relationship we have with water is primal. To begin with, we are 70% water. It is the largest component of our bodies and as such we are subject to all the elements that have an effect on it.

Gravity, for one. We all know how it affects the seas; we wouldn’t have changing tides without it, and we have some real extremes within tides too.

All connected to the phases of the moon. This is where the phrase lunatic comes from.

There is a fascinating book, ‘The hidden messages in water’ by Masaru Emoto. Some of the observations he discusses have to be seen to be believed.  The way water reacts to positivity and negativity could have a massive effect on the way we feel.

Did you ever watch Ewan McGregor in the Amazon with Ray Mears?  There’s one scene in which Ewan is in a torrential downpour, looking miserable. He states, ‘Ray says all you have to do with rain is keep it outside your head’. He then passed a rueful smile.

Its true though. Much easier if you have a hat I’ll admit. Especially when you have as much hair as I do. And a decent set of waterproofs too.

That brings me to another important point.

There’s a conflicting strategy for waterproofs in the rain. When should you put them on?

It takes quite a while to put them on. You have to put down your pack, get them out, put them on and also make sure you put the rain cover over your rucksack.  You may even have to repack your rucksack. Often to make packing easier we attach some of the contents on the outside. The rain cover is not designed to cover whats on the outside of the pack.

With all this information we need to make sure the rainfall is not a brief shower, or we could have to reverse the process a short time later.

A balancing act, as you can see.

It’s also very tempting if the rain is not heavy though, to just put the anorak on.

Don’t. It’s a fool’s errand. Firstly, the rain is going to run down your jacket, and rucksack. Then it will run down your legs. If there’s long grass, and there always is in the next field when its raining, it’ll be wet, that’s also going to run down your legs.

May become a stream.

It doesn’t matter how waterproof your boots are. They are not waterproof from your legs.

You will get very wet feet.

This is what happened to me on this day. This why I am doing shakedown walks. It’s been a while, since I hiked properly and I don’t know how much I will have forgotten.

The solar chargers for my phone don’t work in the rain either.

When Scruffy and I emerged from our tent, it wasn’t raining.  It’s just that on a clear night there’s always a dew early on and what we could hear was the dew dripping off the leaves of the trees.

Love the rain, enjoy the rain, celebrate the rain. It’s part of nature, it’s part of you.

Be prepared for it and enjoy the feeling of connection.

It’s what we are!

Simon Pollard  Urban Countryman.  July 2024.