A compact is a good move, the problem is that there are so many different ones at different prices and qualities.. It's not always a case of spend much to get much.. I tried cheap ones but the technology is poor, slow to react, poor quality images, iffy colour reproduction etc.. I even had a camera where the view finder image was slightly different to what was captured. My advice would be to buy from a well known outlet, but there are issues with this, there are very few proper outlets anymore and you will pay more but the advice will be free and they will not sell anything unreliable as it will cause problems for them. I bought a Nikon D3100 to play around with and I thought I was doing well with it until I played with my mates Canon which gave poor results, I realised it was because the D3100 was entry level and was compensating for my lack of talent.. I bought a used D80 as a 'next step' camera and have found it easier to use because it isn't constantly trying to 'compensate' for me.. Entry level DSLR do produce great images in the same way a compact will but a DSLR has the advantage of lens changes and flexibility in the settings although compacts have tried the lens change route.. My advice would be to look around at plenty of reviews and to go back 5 years or so to find a good quality compact and see if you gat get a discounted new or lightly used second hand one. Try to get one with standard batteries and carry spares, also carry spare SD cards. My Wife has a cheap Samsung that is 10 years old and it still produces great images and quite often they are better than the DSLR ones.. It is easy to be put off if you spend little money and the image are crap the same goes for spending loads of money and get lost in the confusion of the different adjustments, so a trip to a local camera shop is the best place to go, or visit a local camera club ? There are two ways of being able to get your hands on different cameras, get a 'feel' for what suits your hand and to try the different settings.. Image quality is Key here and just because a product says 20Megga pixels doesn't mean the image quality will be good, I have an old Sony Cybershot that is 2MP and it takes great pics.. As will anything quality will win through.. Welcome to a mine field...
I will take pics in the rain, I like to try and catch sun rays coming through clouds, reflections in puddles / rivers / lakes, I love clouds and the shapes and colours.. try a few easy tricks like capturing a raindrop on a leaf or ripples in a puddle or something similar..