A day in the rain

Clouds I like. They can be beautiful, majestic and even awe-inspiring. For me, the key is they hide the sun. I'm not a sun person. But today they were formless, omnipresent and wet.

London weather I like. It's rarely two days the same. Never too much sun and the rain is rarely all day but usually in bursts especially around lunchtime. That, I like. It's easy to forget in London then that weather systems elsehwere can persist for days at a time. I never trust a weather report in London, but the weather reports from 10 days ago were spot on for today in Fort William. I'm still hoping tomorrow might have a few dry patches because today there wasn't even a break to take out the camera.

Our clothing experience today was an advert for modern synthetics. I wore state-of-art Gortex covers over fully breathable and wicking layers. I stayed dry completely. Katarina, both because quality child-size gear is difficult to find but also because there's a limit to how much I could spend on a body size that will change in a few months, got wet. The perfect example was her top layers. She had 4. A cotton t-shirt, then a synthetic wicking fleece, a cotton hoodie and finally a synthetic jacket. Both cotton layers were saturated despite not being next to each other. The other two were much better, although her outer jacket seemingly lost it's breathability after I washed it. Her trousers were so poor, despite being labelled as waterproof, that I had to buy a new pair half way through the day. Always buy synthetic.

The floor of our room is scattered with numerous items in varying stages of drying. The rucksack had a rain cover but after many openings during the day and just the sheer volume of water trickling into any exposed corners, it was a little damp. However I did insert a waterproof lining inside so never any fear of gear getting wet.

In the end we did manage a walk, which was still fun at times, but clearly the rain dampened the fun by reducing, especially, the pleasure of photography. But also, clearly, constant walking is not Katarina's favourite activity. I've had to lighten this up and now seek more absorbing activities before we move on to the Lake District for a return to walking. We've seen Ben Nevis and that was the primary objective.