Sounding Ridiculously Lame And Pathetic
You know how it is, when you wake up and nervously pull back the curtains, knowing that you have something special arranged for today and that you really, really want the weather to be kind to you? That “heart in mouth, please don’t let it be raining” sort of feeling. Just for today, please, no rain, thank you.
Everyone knows that feeling, don’t they?
Or is that just just a peculiarly British thing?
Anyhow, that’s how I was feeling on that Sunday morning. Nervous yet hopeful. And of course, I don’t really need to spell out to you what I found, do I?
It was raining.
In fact, it was chucking it down. Really pouring. It was that “puddles on the lawn, gutters overflowing, delays on the trains” kind of weather that we seem to get so much of here in the UK.
Just what we wanted for an autumnal walk in the Surrey Hills with friends.
But hey, we are now seasoned walkers and there was no way we were going to let a little water stop us from doing our thing. Oh no, we were ready.
Although, when I say ready, I mean we were ready only after we had tried (unsuccessfully) to cancel it a couple of times after seeing the forecast for the rest of the day. And then realised that there was no good excuses that we could reasonably come up with that didn’t sound ridiculously lame and pathetic. Oh, and after being told that the people we were walking with would only cancel if the rain was considered to be of biblical proportions, and we knew that we were not quite ready to consider building an Ark just yet.
So yes, that was the kind of ready we were.
And, of course, it got wetter as we started our journey to Box Hill in the car. Of course it did. There were puddles, there was flooding and a lack of the usual kind of idiots out on the streets because, let’s face it, they had all seen the forecast and stayed in bed.
So when we arrived we were shocked to see so many people in the car park. People like us, with maps, waterproofs and some very determined looks on their faces. Well, we had two of those things anyway.
The walkers were out in force, no matter how bad the weather was.
And it sort of cheered us up if I am being honest. Because if they could do it so could we. It was only a little (or a lot, depending on your point of view) bit of rain after all. So we joined the die-hard’s and noticed that the numbers increased as we got near the station, as streams of people (pun intended), all in varying states of preparedness, emerged from trains in unexpected numbers.
It appeared that we had stumbled upon some kind of walking hot spot. Who knew that this part of Surrey in the autumn would be so popular.
But popular it was.
And, as we waited for our friends to arrive, embracing our new found pride in being part of something empowering and almost uplifting, well, it stopped raining.
Not that I, we, were unhappy of course.
Because it had stopped raining.
And the sun made an appearance. And, mostly, after all of that stress and extreme over thinking that had blighted our early morning, the day turned into something really rather beautiful. The colours of the autumnal leaves on our walk through the fields and woods were spectacular and we were able to overlook the majority of the puddles and flooding. And we did our best to fight our way through the mud because, well, the sun was shining and we were hardy and toughened walkers, were we not?
And who, if they are being honest with themselves, is going to let a little weather get in the way of an 8 mile walk through the countryside?
Not us, that’s for sure.
