It's raining a little harder today. On my walk I noticed my outstretched hand is hit every three seconds - quite impressive compared to yesterday. The rain hitting the leaves is a very relaxing sound and reminds me of summer holidays in Scotland. When I look up into the canopy of the excessively tall redwoods, I can see the occasional raindrop getting through. They start really high up and my eye can follow them all the way down, until they nearly hit me. At this point I do a neat side-step, only to get hit by a different one. We dance this waltz for a few minutes until I give up and move on.
Everything smells wonderfully damp and earthy. At some points on the trail there is the heady fragrance of flowers. I can feel a million eyes watching me from the undergrowth. Something moves a little to my left, and I am staring directly into the eyes of a deer. We hold the look for several moments, waiting to see who will blink first. She is motionless, apart from her over sized ears adjusting to the sounds in the forest.
I pass the moss covered stump of a redwood tree, the hollowed out centre neatly converted into a chair with a well fitted plank - a woodland throne. When I wander off the trail, the ground is so thickly covered in leaf litter and forest debris that it is like walking on a mattress. Some animals have felt the same thing, and every so often there is a small burrow dug into the soil.
The rain drops have caught on spiders' webs. Lots of them. Some lie horizontally across the twigs and leaves. Others are little hammocks in between fissures on the redwood bark. I wonder whether the spiders come out in the sunshine and use one foot to keep swinging, and another to hold the cocktail. The hammocks create a ladder effect up the tree - I wonder whether they lean over and have a chat to each other as well.
I love the rain, and it will make us all appreciate the sun all the more when it shows up again.
Everything smells wonderfully damp and earthy. At some points on the trail there is the heady fragrance of flowers. I can feel a million eyes watching me from the undergrowth. Something moves a little to my left, and I am staring directly into the eyes of a deer. We hold the look for several moments, waiting to see who will blink first. She is motionless, apart from her over sized ears adjusting to the sounds in the forest.
I pass the moss covered stump of a redwood tree, the hollowed out centre neatly converted into a chair with a well fitted plank - a woodland throne. When I wander off the trail, the ground is so thickly covered in leaf litter and forest debris that it is like walking on a mattress. Some animals have felt the same thing, and every so often there is a small burrow dug into the soil.
The rain drops have caught on spiders' webs. Lots of them. Some lie horizontally across the twigs and leaves. Others are little hammocks in between fissures on the redwood bark. I wonder whether the spiders come out in the sunshine and use one foot to keep swinging, and another to hold the cocktail. The hammocks create a ladder effect up the tree - I wonder whether they lean over and have a chat to each other as well.
I love the rain, and it will make us all appreciate the sun all the more when it shows up again.
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