Dubious pleasures

What do you do if you wake up in the morning to see the rain lashing against the windows and the clouds scudding across the sky? My advice would be not to go out for a walk in the countryside. Now, admittedly, we’ve had such a wet and windy winter that it can be hard to find a pleasant day for a walk, but it is possible. Sometimes the rain takes a day off and the wind dies down, gathering its strength for the next assault. Occasionally, the sun emerges from behind the clouds just to remind us that it’s still there. However, Wednesday was not one of those days.

We belong to a walking group that meets every third Wednesday in the month and we’re at the mercy of whatever the weather is like that day. Most sensible members of the group check the weather forecast and if it’s really horrendous, decide to stay inside where it’s warm and dry. For some reason we didn’t, and ended up battling our way through wind, rain, waterlogged fields and giant puddles. But the worst was the mud. Squelchy, slidey, slippery mud everywhere we went.

Was it pleasant? Not really, but we were very glad once we’d done it and were enjoying hot drinks and lunch at the pub. It reminds me of that old joke about the person who, when asked why they’re banging their head against the wall, replies “Because it feels so good when I stop.” I think that might sum up the dubious pleasure of winter walks in Britain.

I have a friend who’s a keen walker and definitely not put off by inclement weather. She once went on a walking holiday on the Isle of Man and sent me a video of her battling to climb up a hill in the face of a violent wind. I have to be honest, it still makes me laugh to watch it. The things we do in the name of enjoyment! Do we actively seek out discomfort because it’s so lovely when it stops?

This same friend gave me a book called 52 ways to walk, with chapters covering the benefits of walking with a dog, by yourself, near water, in the forest, etc. When I got home from Wednesday’s trek, I picked up this book and read the chapters on walking in the rain, the wind, the cold, the mud and in groups, all of which we had just done. Aside from the obvious physical and psychological benefits, we had also stimulated our senses, reconnected with nature and re-energised ourselves. I’m sure that’s all true. What the book didn’t say was how much it had made us laugh as we were slipping and sliding, and tightening our hoods to protect ourselves from the wind and rain. I couldn’t find a chapter on smiling in disbelief at what you’d done or the pleasure of eating lunch in a warm, dry pub afterwards. The sheer pleasure of stopping. Maybe it’ll be in the next edition.