Mostly it rained

"I spent eighteen months on the Pennine Way, walking it in bits and pieces. Mostly it rained - pouring rain, driving rain, rain that came down like stair-rods. I came to pray not for fine days, which seemed too much to ask, but for gentle and not-so-wetting rain... ...The rain was awful. There were a few fine days, mere pinpricks in the general gloom, but even then the ground still squirted at every step and paths remained ribbons of water... I suppose the Pennine Way never dries out. It never did for me."