Welcome to Litsy!

You don‘t get the full UK camping experience without getting drenched at least once. Today was that day. I headed to the furthest end of the beach and ran back in the rain. It was lovely. And very very wet. Great excuse for a campfire to dry out😊

The sky here turns a funny shade of purple when it‘s about to do something brutal. I‘ve never seen it that colour anywhere else.

And a nice calm book of rain in case you need any more! #LitsySummerCamp

One of my favourite reads from last year, a gentle look at #rain in the different season in Britain.

#AcrossApril @Eggs

I loved these 4 essays on how the landscape changes in the #rain in each of the seasons.

#MarchMadness @Eggs

The tagged book is a collection of 4 essays about how #rain affects and influences the English countryside.

#AyUpAugust
@Cinfhen
@squirrelbrain

A must-read for every Englishman or -woman - particularly right now, while we sit in a low pressure area surrounded by occluded fronts giving us nothing but persistent rain! Harrison describes how the countryside flora and fauna are altered by rainfall, describing 4 different landscapes, one in each season, from Fen to Moor, River Valley to rolling hills. A read of this may persuade you to don your wet weather gear and head outdoors.

No better time to read a book called Rain than during a British summer 😂 Persistent rain for the last few days, and apparently the temperature yesterday was the same as it was on Christmas Day last year 🙄

But a bit of rain won‘t stop me reaching my #BookFitnessChallenge goals!

Melissa Harrison puts her waterproof togs on and takes four seasonal rainy walks in different locations throughout the UK, telling us about how the local geography and wildlife is shaped by and dependent on the rain. It's a nice book and ideal bedtime reading. Personally, I would have preferred more "heft" to it, but for a vicarious stroll in the English countryside in "bad" weather, Harrison makes for an amiable companion.

Thank you @squirrelbrain and @RachelO for the wonderful Litsy mail. 😘
The Ile de Re looks beautiful and sounds wonderful, Helen!
Please don't worry about the travelling book, Rachel; it really doesn't matter. I almost bought Rain last week in Bristol but it was one of several I regretfully left behind. I'm looking forward to reading it. (And how stunning is that kingfisher?) Wishing you well, my dear! ❤

Rain! Oh, I have missed you!
It looks like I won't be doing the gardening this afternoon. I'm still tempted to go for a brisk walk, though. Maybe it'll help me decide what to read next. The contenders are:

My grandmother sends her regards... (Frederik Backman)
God help the child (Toni Morrison)
Flight Behaviour (Barbara Kingsolver)

Any opinions, Littens?

At the end of the book, Harrison has compiled 100 words concerning rain, evidence of the UK‘s rich lexicon for wet weather. My favourites include “dringey: the kind of light rain that still manages to get you soaking wet,” and “drisk: misty drizzle.”

Four short essays about walking in wet weather in every season in England. As with Harrison‘s novels (which I liked even more than this) I have come away with an expanded vocabulary and a new way of looking at nature. I also feel inspired to spend more time outdoors in the rain. 🌧

To experience the countryside on fair days and never foul is to understand only half its story. To watch rain pock the surface of a chalk stream, feel mizzle on the chill skin of your face or smell petrichor rising from summer-dry soil is to be baptised into a fuller, older and more deeply felt relationship with the natural world.

“I think we need the weather, in all its forms, to feel fully human—which is to say, an animal. New research has revealed that despite our double-glazed homes and brightly lit offices, a tiny but vital part of our brain knows what season it is outside and alters the behaviour of our immune systems accordingly: proof that millennia of evolution in nature—not apart from it—have left their mark.”

“My year of getting wet—and thinking about, and reading about, rain—has broadened and deepened my feeling for the outside world. I‘m no longer just a fair-weather walker; I choose now to overcome the impulse for comfort and convenience that insulates us not only from the bad in life but from much of the good.”

Low flies the swallow,
Rain to follow;
But when swallows fly high
The weather will be dry.

A recent study by the Environment and Sustainability Institute, U of Exeter, showed that 1 square metre of intensively improved grassland held just 47 litres of water compared to the 259 litres per square metre held by unimproved rhôs pasture with its naturally occurring purple moor grass and sharp-flowered rush.
(Photo taken on the other side of the world from the Welsh rhôs pastures described.)

A beautiful book, will make you want to head for England.

#day15 #jubilantjuly #rain I'm a total pluviophile and love to read when it's raining..... these words all speak to me.... 💕 (This slim little book has gorgeous nature writing, focused on four walks in English countryside on rainy days....)

#nextup This looks like the perfect little read for this 'pluviophile' ..... though I think it's going to make me very homesick! I love the blurbs on the back cover... this sounds perfect 💗🌧💗🌧💗🌧

An uncharacteristic sunny spring day here in Devon. And a book about more typical weather (the rain yesterday wassomething else!) & one of the book's illustrations- Dartmoor in the rain.

#weather #aprilbookshowers @RealLifeReading

#day2 #aprilbookshowers #weather I happened upon this word on Pinterest one day, and I just adore it... it's totally how I feel about rain (even though I live in the Sunshine state!) . Just ordered this book from book depository... I think it is going to make me incredibly homesick for rainy old England, but I hear Melissa Harrison's writing is just beautiful 📚💕

#day7 #readjanuary #booksaboutnature I consider myself a 'pluviophile' and miss home (UK) terribly at times, so recently added this to my TBR.... it sounds lovely.........💕🌧☔️

A gorgeous slim little book of 4 walks in the rain. I love the writing, the sense of place, the little snippets of science and history, the artwork...
And yet. Just a little nagging something missing. I think maybe I hoped for more *story*. Still a resounding pick, and I'll be keeping and coming back to it.

An early night, listening to it henting, kelching, plothering and hossing it down outside. 💦🌧

#24in48 I seem to be on a nonfiction spree at the moment. Gorgeous nature writing from the author of At Hawthorn Time.

Beautiful birthday books! And beautiful birthday weather ⛈⚡️💦⚡️🌧 !