Wuthering Heights lied about the moors..

In retrospect, I should have known better.

There’s only one rule to living in the UK. No, I mean, of course there are many — Never drink Guiness out of the can. Respect the queues. Look both ways before crossing the street. Always let people get off the Tube before you get on it (exceptions to be made when there’s an Arsenal game and you’re on the Overground). Do not feed the swans in Hyde Park.

But the number one rule..

The one you can’t disregard under any circumstances. The number one rule is this: always check the goddamn weather forecast.

Now, the weather in the UK is temperamental. In fact, as you’re reading this, there’s a 74% chance that it’s raining in London this very second. And it is, in fact, the one and only thing a Brit will talk your ear off if you let them (we don’t discuss our feelings here, just the lack of sun and the preponderance of rain).

But anyways, this isn’t a merely post about the weather. This is a post about me being an idiot.

Idiot enough to go on a 22km hike without checking the forecast.

The first two hours of my hike into the South Downs Park, we were pelted by angry, sideways rain (and a rather painful smattering or two of hail). The kind of rain they don’t talk about in Wuthering Heights. Apparently Heathcliff never needed to carry an umbrella. My ‘waterproof’ jacket, undershirt, leggings, hiking boots, and socks got utterly drenched. Only made better by the raging winds and the temperature hovering around 37ºF – other crucial information I would have gathered had I read the weather forecast.

Anyways, no one died. Or got tuberculosis like in a Victorian novel.

I hiked the rest of the South Downs, past the Long Man of Wilmington and into Eastbourne miserable and wet, but still kind of enjoying it because I’m as sucker for unpleasant experiences. I skidded in the white chalk mud of the Sussex coast only a few times, but never slipped. My jacket gradually dried off, but my feet still sloshed around like pickled olives in a dirty martini even as we pulled into Victoria station.

Learn from my mistakes, kids. Pin the weather app. Avoid Highbury and Islington on Arsenal game days. And stay away from the goddamn swans.