Dark rain clouds. Gusty wind. The heavens primed to open. For most, these are signs to stay indoors. Not Matt Gaw. For this self-confessed aficionado of gnarly weather, rainstorms have him reaching for the latch.
Why? Mostly, he says, it’s just “good fun”. As adults, reckons the nature writer and secondary school teacher, weather gives us the opportunity to indulge our primal instinct for play.
The grottier it is, in fact, the better. He recalls recently standing on an exposed promontory on the Isle of Skye, for example, his teenage kids at his side, the weather “blowing a hoolie”. It was, he says, a holiday highlight.