I love rain.

I mean, really love it. I’m a headf*ck rain bore. A complete rain tw*t.

Right now, as it sheets it down, all day, I’m happier than ever.

Rain is part of who I am. It defines me. My Desert Island Disc is Singing In The Rain. Seriously.

Rain is my friend, mantra, thread & philosophy.

Smile in Ventile?

What?

It started when I used to race bikes as a teenager. You’d enter a race months in advance, pay the entry fee, plan, train, manage to get a lift half way across the UK and turn up to find half of the 60 guys hadn’t turned up. Lost already. No chance. None.

Of the remaining 30, 25 were whinging or sat miserable. Lost already. Why get out of bed?

5 prepared. Right clothes, right head.

1 guy had The Look. He was loving it. He would win. Everyone could see it. He was shining ‘win’.

By half way, 15 were gone from misery, most likely freezing cold. No jacket. No prep.

I would finish and get points, just by not stopping. The Look Guy, he won. He had won the day he decided rain was ok, rain was great.

Most people don’t think rain is great. A lot of people lose something they could have won.

So I decided rain was great. I told myself. I made myself. I forced myself.

I changed myself by going out into it, deliberately. By improving my clothing. Checking my brakes, tweaking my tyres. Mostly, by leaving excitedly, finding the water splashing up my shorts funny, by seeing it all as one silly adventure. By singing in the rain.

35 years on, out cycling to work in the rain this morning

I am going to get wet. Am I beating this, or is it beating me? Heh, its water, not sulphuric acid.

Then you understand you have an unfair advantage. Boy do people hate rain. Now I can jump the ladder by doing nothing. Just liking. By thinking.

Why hate something we can do nothing about? Nothing. Zero. 

Sorry, I’m a rain evangelist. I should have a temple to rain. No roof. Just wellies and coats to borrow.

I’m one of those awful positivity evangelists. Not in some spiritual way. My way is, why moan? Why bother? Where does it get me? I’m getting rained on. You’re getting rained on. That bloke over there. Her in the doorway. All wet.

It’s water.

Us Brits love to complain about the weather. It’s like exchanging pleasantries. To me it sounds like nails down a blackboard. That’s the problem with us evangelists - zealotry creeps in.

It drives my wife crazy. She likes to complain about the rain. She's sane. I look at her blankly. We've had the conversation a hundred times. My confused disbelief. My grating positivity. It's very tiring complaining to the overly optimistic.

Life pisses all over all of us sometimes. I’m the one smiling, or at least accepting. I have an unfair advantage.

Life is full of many kinds of rains. Work. Family. Car. House. Worse. Less worse. We get wet. Soaked. Cold. Miserable.

Sometimes you can’t help it. It comes out of nowhere. Spend enough time in it and you get hypothermic, depressed, shaken, beaten. That’s natural.

Most times you can prepare. Plan. Take it when it comes. Maybe even enjoy it. We can get better at rain.

We can choose to accept the unchangeable and react to the changeable, or drown.

My obsession with enjoying the rain became an actuality. I rewired myself. I seek rain.

I take pleasure in my difference. I will not be beaten by water. If I love it, I have a  superpower.

Rain is wonderful. Nature is beautiful. Challenge is fun. Water gives life. We can do nothing, embrace it or be compressed by it. It’s only water. Breath, lift your head up to it.

I rewired myself with rain. Then my brain started rewiring other bits of not-wet-rain. Positivity grows. It became a wider philosophy…

Now, I even design jackets to better embrace rain. Rain really has rewired and defined me.

Life has its thunderstorms. You can’t happily skip through them all. But you can walk out the terrace and let it hit you full in the face. Feel alive.

 

Grab a (4 Seasons Waterproof) Coat if you can. But any will do, as long as you're out there 

Grab a coat, start walking. Once your feet are wet, keep walking. Wet feet don’t matter that much. Trenchfoot takes time - you’ll be home for a hot shower, fleecy pyjamas and tea. You earned it.

Start tomorrow. Embrace the rain. The late alarm. The dinked car. It’s happened. It’s gone. What do you do now?

Rain is life. Get in it.

Nick.