A Man Ridding a Donkey in Spain

Yesterday i looked at the rain forecast and it looked as though I could go for a walk, without taking a proper rain coat. I wore the btwin cycling rain jacket instead. I decided to carry a mini umbrella with me in case the rain got harder.

I have carried this mini umbrella several times in recent weeks but until yesterday I had no reason to use it. Yesterday I could feel that the rain was getting heavier so I took it out and I walked for fourty or so minutes with the umbrella.

I have a deep hatred of umbrellas because, in my eyes, a rain coat is much better, when it’s raining. Yesterday I deployed the umbrella but almost instantly found myself fighting with the wind. I had to swap it from hand to hand depending on the wind direction and I had to lean it so that the exterior was pointing into the wind. The wind wanted to lift the umbrella and take it away from me.

With an ordinary rain coat you put it on, and that’s it. You’re ready to walk in the rain for hours without thinking about it. With an umbrella the opposite is true. It might be easier to carry when not in use, but as soon as it’s open it’s trying to catch the wind and fly away. You find yourself impatient to walk either sideways from the wind or with your back to it. Walking into the wind requires the umbrella to be in front and tilted to block your view, so that you can’t see where you’re going.

For years I had a negative opinion of umbrellas and yesterday I reinforced that negative opinion. What is the point of carrying something that takes two to three times your space, catches the wind, and blocks you from seeing where you’re going?

Usually walking in these conditions I would have had soaked trousers, a soaked hat, and everything beneath the cycling rain coat would need to be changed, for dry clothes. This time my trousers were soaked but the top half of the body was dry. The umbrella did keep me dry but inelegantly.

Rest assured that I haven’t changed. I was testing one of the sea to summit mini hiking umbrellas. I like the btwin cycling rain jacket because it’s easy to crumple into a bag in case of rain. The one drawback is that it has no hood so you still get your head wet. It’s fine in light rain. In rain, as it was yesterday, it makes sense to have an equally easy to carry umbrella. It’s so light that it can live in your hiking bag in all weather, ready to be used within thirty seconds if the rain gets heavy enough. Without the wind this solution would have worked well.

If it had been raining heavily before I started my walk I would have worn a proper rain coat, and maybe even proper rain trousers. It’s because the swiss weather app didn’t confirm that it would rain that I took the risk of walking in the rain with minimal rain gear. I got home with the top half relatively dry but still had to take off socks and change trousers.