… Is what I was talking about before being interrupted by an all-nighter in A&E two hours’ away.

Apologies. (Oh no wait, I’ve done that.)

I was about to tell you how much I love traditional English weather. And Irish, Scots and Welsh weather, come to that. And Cornish, since we’re about it, given that it’s country all of its own. (And probably Norfolk meteorology most of all: its wild winter storms; as much as the glorious breezy July beach weather, which gave rise to the original “sand” in “sandwiches”.)

The case in point, I seem to remember, being the weather on the North West coast of Ireland.

So there we were, the five of us (one not being born yet; and another not well enough to join us) with five horses, one map, one vast desert wasteland stretching along the coastline, and ten opinions as to which direction to go in.

Actually, that’s not quite true. There were only really two opinions. The cartographical one, as expressed by Shaun.

And the equine one, as expressed by all five of them.

It’s definitely inland, Shaun insisted. No doubt about it. The path that’s been marked for us goes into that wood.

Nope, all five quadrupeds contradicted in unison. It’s along the beach.

We argued about this for approximately half an hour. The humans all throwing their weight behind the map-reader: through the trees.

The equines all adamant the other way: along the sea.

It was slightly unnerving. I mean, they’d done this very many more times than we had. This was the way they’d always been, always would go and were going to go today.

As we all know, the Good Lord shoved humankind on the earth to manage, care for, steward and particularly subdue Creation, right? Including horses. (And slugs, leviathan, Labradors &c. Everything except mosquitos, which nothing seems able to subdue.)

So obviously, we exerted our God-given authority; demonstrated good, decisive leadership; referenced the superior powers of Homo Erectus to read a map.

And graciously went along the beach.

Well anyway, there was a lot of weather in that holiday. On account of that this was the West C of Eire.

Though that wasn’t the only thing. There was also:

Hunger. (I cancelled all our dinners to economise… before finding ourselves in countryside so remote that we didn’t see a shop or pub for several days. Never in the field of travel journalism has so much been eaten at so many breakfasts by so few. Nor a travel journalist been so unpopular.)
Hospitalisation. (For some reason lost in the telling, young Ben hadn’t packed his half-chaps. So Shaun, being such a selfless parent – I wouldn’t have done this; not in a dozen riding trips – heroically gave Ben his… and ended up with such a severe sore on the inside of one knee that he needed medical attention. There were other things wrong with our packing that holiday, too. Serena chose to fill one of only two small saddle bags available to her, with a hairdryer. In order to ride many long hours every day in the saddle, with only the briefest of overnight stop-offs in the most Spartan of conditions, in between taking her hard hat off before a late and non-existent supper, and putting it on again after breakfast next morning.) And of course, finally,
Humidity. In the form of relentless Irish rain.

By the end of the ten days, there were only two of us still mounted.

Ben. With his father’s half-chaps.

And me. With mine.

And the two best raincoats of the party.

It didn’t so much rain, that last day, as teem. Pelt. Gush. Cascade. Disgorge. Vomit forth. Evacuate the sky.

All day.

And long into a very long, dark night.

And it was wonderful.

As we all know, “There’s no such thing as bad weather…” Ben and I had the perfect clothing.

Hour after darkening hour, we rode along muddy lanes, between wet thorns and under dripping branches – towards the others, warm in a pub – singing the rebel Republican songs of Shaun’s childhood.

Drizabone under our riding macintoshes.

Glorious.

So never say, what a miserable day.

It is never a miserable day.

It might be a wet day, or a cold day, or a snowy day, or a really excitingly rough stormy day. Or a day when you are pelted with bullet hailstones by some mischievous little weather god in a cloud.

It might even be a hot day or a sunny day or a lazy day or a hazy day.

But it is always a lovely day.

(PS There is a Caveat to this. The only weather I don’t like is unnatural weather; much as I love the sun… Weeks and weeks of tropical heatwave in what should be a temperate England, signalling the sickness of our dear, precious planet. And no one can do anything about that except we ourselves.)