Soaked

Yesterday I planned to walk so I put on my hiking boots and just as I was about to go out I heard large rain drops hit the velux. I thought “according to the weather app the rain should be light”. It wasn’t light. It was heavy and sustained.

You might think “So, why didn’t you just wait out the rain. A few days ago I saw that rain was forecast, so I didn’t go for an after lunch walk. The rain never came so I ended up going for my walk at rush hour, when everyone was commuting home, rather than when it was quiet.

A few days ago I saw that heavy rain was announced for that afternoon so I thought that I would not go for a walk. In the end I did go for a walk in the heavy rain. I was wearing a reasonable rain coat so I could have stayed dry if I had also worn rain trousers.

I didn’t wear rain trousers so for at least half the walk I was okay. I wasn’t too wet. Eventually though I started walking into the wind and my trousers started to get wet. Usually when you walk in the rain it’s not that your coat fails you. It’s that the clothing that is not protected from the rain whicks the water upwards, from your trousers, to your t-shirt, to your sweater, to your fleece. In the end you’re soaking wet.

“I don’t need to go for a one and a half hour walk. I said that to a neighbour before my walk. I could have cut it short, if it started to rain too heavily. Paradoxically for most of the walk it was grey and drizzling. Nothing to worry about. I was almost dry for almost the entire walk.

It’s as I walked the last one and a half kilometres that it started to rain heavily. Within a few minutes my trousers were soaked, and within a few more minutes my shoes and socks were soaked. Luckily the walk ended before it started to whick up through my t-shirt. The rain was so strong that when I took off my trousers my legs were soaked, as if I had just come out of the shower. I had. It was a rain shower.