online: 27 may 2006
modified: 26, 27 may 2006

26 may 2006 in the forest and beyond


19:30 Sandy Heath...seat by a pond covered with algae... light is suddenly decreasing as rainclouds gather... now wind reaches here inside the previously still forest... a man walks by, waves, and says hello... I hear a cuckoo, my first this year (though i don't remember hearing more than one or two in all these 17 years of walking the heath)... it sounds nearer now... this scene is so green, light green of leaves and dark green, almost black green, of tree trunks and branches... the cuckoo sounds now as if it is less than 100 metres away but i still cannot see it... sunlight shines again through branches from the north west... I decide to walk a little further before it gets dark, or rain begins...

..walking back via West Heath i find a lookout hill from which there is an unobstructed view to the west but upon which there is no seat - just the place for the camp stool! ... this evening i see a fine sunset. orange-yellow clouds, somewhat murky, above a strip of grey cloud... and rain along the horizon about 15 km away... higher up there are low grey clouds (now pinkish in the light of the sunset) moving slowly beneath cirro-stratus (high-flying bubbly cloud)...

...the furthest ridge is light grey through misty rain which may reach here in about 10 minutes and so i look about, and listen, before it arrives...

...i see that i'm surrounded by new ferns unrolling, new bramble stalks, a young mountain ash, a dead tree (also young) and stalks and leaves of grass growing fast all round this little hilltop... behind are some fir trees, probably planted here deliberately, as on nearby hilltops...

10 mins later the sunset has moved behind trees, and grown dim, the rain looks a little nearer, and colder air has arrived... i fold up the campstool and walk on, happy to have found that lookout place with a view to the west, to the Ridgeway and beyond, towards Stonehenge, Wales, Ireland, the Atlantic, and the setting sun...




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