Rain, rain, snow

and writing a path through depression. Plus a hedgehog.

It’s seems almost impossible to remember that 2025 was a year of drought.

I’m Clare, by the way. And this time last year, I spent three days in the Langdale Valley ostensibly writing; in actuality, walking, walking, walking - trying to finding a path through the crushing depression which I always feel in this dark, exhausted month. It took Facebook to remind me how I was gifted sunshine, blue skies and bright clouds, the scarlet blare of elfcups blooming in moss. Five Februaries earlier, as I walked my way through the impending death of my mother, the Lakes gave me light days so mild I could walk in T-shirts; green spaces to sing and cry in before the storm beat on the windows the night she died.

And this year: rain, and rain, and rain, literal, metaphorical, drizzle and storm and fog, emotional, lashing and leaking the roof, the windows, rotting the sills, staining my ceilings. Rain. In January’s live Substack event, I read from my account of Storm Floris on the third day of walking the Coast-to-Coast path with my teen, Niamh:

“By the time we left Borrowdale Youth Hostel this morning, the rain had been torrential for hours; the fields were flooded, all of yesterday’s small streams and peaceful rivers were Lodore, were dashing and crashing and spreading.

In fact the whole day was an -ing, in motion, dynamic, utterly verb. The air was shimmering with rain, and the rain was gusting across the sky in waves, and the trees were dashing their heads and the roads were flowing. The soil was swelling and shifting, and the moss was glowing, and just being outside felt like a wildness.

Storm Floris hit us as predicted. With no practical low route, most of the C2C walkers took the bus. We chose to walk the west side of Derwentwater into Keswick, because no walking at all felt too wrong. I was glad we did. By noon, the rain stopped, and the wind started in earnest – enough to blow us sideways, even at lake level”.

The official Coast-to-Coast path took us over a high pass and an exposed summit between Borrowdale and Grasmere, and in 70 mph winds and heavy rain, it was impossible. So we walked an equivalent distance at a lower level, and promised ourselves we’d return at some point to finish the job.

And 12 days ago, we did. Our plan – to park up in Grasmere, and walk up Easedale Gill, over Lining Crag and down into Rosthwaite for the night, returning in the morning via Greenup Gill, and if the weather allowed, an extension to High White Stones and Easdale Tarn.

The weather did most definitely not allow.

We left Grasmere in sleet, fog, and wet snow; three miles into the route and the path was completely obscured. Snow fell in stinging earnest. We retreated, drove to our hotel and warmed ourselves before a late afternoon, low-level walk in Borrowdale. But by the next day, the mood and the weather had changed, and the white valleys were green. Up Greenup Gill then, almost dizzy with relief that we hadn’t attempted the scrambles and summit and the steep descent of Lining Crag in the snow. Up into the black-and-white mosaic of Birks and its snow and bog pools, its sphagnum and lichen: those species which thrive in blooming in harshest conditions. More relief when the path down Ferncliff Crag opened beneath us, and where the whiteout had thawed, green, green; four waterfalls; deep clefts glowing with moss. Then an easy walk down the gill and its blue-green pools into Grasmere, and a quick visit to Polly Atkin’s lovely partner Will, in Sam Reed’s - the best bookshop in Cumbria.

High five! The Coast-to-Coast was officially completed. Buses to Rosthwaite, and the meal of champions: chips and mushy peas, a pot of tea.

I didn’t set out to write this. I began this piece with the rainless days of 2025 so that I could tell you how they brought a hedgehog to my door, skinny and dehydrated; how I took him to a local sanctuary who nursed him back to health. I intended to tell you how the “Full of Joy Animal Sanctuary” runs on entirely on donations, how I decided to help by running a fundraising poetry workshop to celebrate the more-than-human lives which surround us. On Sunday, 36 participants showed up, raising half of the cost of an incubator for hedgehogs and other small animals - so I decided then to run another online workshop on March 28^th, from 10-12.30: click here. In the meantime, “Full of Joy” told me that Lizzie Holden who attended the workshop, had contacted them to pay the rest of the cost. This means that whatever we raise in this second workshop will go towards a second incubator, where owls and hawks and rabbits and other sick creatures can be nursed. I hope some of you can join us.

Instead of the piece I’d planned, on hot days and hedgehogs - and the saving power of poetry, which gives us the means to save small animals, to express ourselves, to understand the world around and inside us, to imagine a different relationship with nature, to bring us together – I wrote this piece on walking through tough weather, and depression, and my regular return to despair. Sometimes the words lead you where you most need to go, and you have to follow them.

I find my meaning in landscape. Every day I walk, and it’s very hard, and rainy, and dark. I am so tired. Some days I simply don’t want to take another step. I want the path to stop. But then there is lichen, that incredible symbiosis of fungus and algae, through which life first crept on its belly onto the land. Then there is scarlet elfcup, and the drowned Ophelia of sphagnum cuspidatum, and the blackbird resuming its song – and yesterday, the first curlew. And there is always my Niamh, my first light, bright star, my green.

I will not pretend that nature, or poetry for that matter, cures depression. Some days, nature means nothing more than life is incredibly tough, and the world is colourless. But the weather does change. Under the snow, there is green.

If you want to explore how landscape can shape your words; to learn - through reading and writing - about the symbiotic relationship between writing and nature, then you might be interested in “Writing Bogwise: magical places, new approaches”, a series of workshops I’ll be delivering with Anna Chilvers on the third Thursday of every month, beginning on March 18^th. And on March 1^st , we’ll launch b(l)og on Anna’s substack “A Place to Be”. Each month, Anna and I – with guest writers – will explore our passion for moors, bogs, mires, and other watery habitats. We’ll examine, through the fascinating ecology of these portal places, how we might write landscape, and how in turn landscape might shape our poetry and our stories, offering us new approaches and voices, new practices and forms.

Thanks for reading. Remember, warmer days are on their way.