All Hail Autumn

It was a dark and stormy night midday. Suddenly a shot rang out... 

Oops, wait, this isn't a Peanuts cartoon.

It was a dark and stormy midday, just the same. It's been pelting it down with hail and rain the last couple of days, and there's barely been a time without some kind of wet stuff falling from the heavens stopping me getting a good walk since I made that pre-Abigail walk a couple of weeks ago (and that was dodging raindrops, too.) There has been sightings of the sun here and there, tempting us to think that the weather might be improving at last by swathing the skies in blue and wafting a daring few cotton candy clouds around like a burlesque dancer, but the grey and the rain have just kept coming back to disenchant us.

Welcome to November in North-West Europe.

I had been keeping a weather eye on Wunderground, though, which informed me that today there was a fair to middling chance that it might stay clement for up to an hour at a time! UP TO AN HOUR AT A TIME! Indeed, the sun had shone for about twenty minutes around ten o'clock, so I had every reason to believe that today was the day I'd finally venture outside and get a decent amount of steps totted up. I know. I may not be the most religious of persons, but I'm quite happy to lay what faith I have at the slightly questionable altar of weather forecasting. I'm sure there's a joke in there somewhere.

As soon as the forecast deities showed a decent break in the cloud to the north, I was suited and booted and ready for some fresh air. Yes, it was still hailing as I passed the Peace Palace (this photo is looking south-east) but by the time I arrived at the outskirts of the woods, the sun was shining through the raindrops.

(Note to self: when walking through the woods just after a rain shower, keep your brolly UP for a bit even if the rain finished a while ago, because the tiniest whisper of wind will turn every nearby tree into the rooted version of a wet dog shaking itself dry.) 

There's something special about sunlight in the woods just after it has rained. Perhaps it's the reflection of a million suspended droplets, quivering on bare branches and catching the sun; perhaps it's the bright sky being echoed in the myriad puddles blocking the paths with their blue water hazards; perhaps it's merely the joy of walking outside after being cooped up indoors for so long burnishing everything with a lustrous sparkle. It's probably a delicious combination of all three!

You may have noticed that I am very fond indeed of views like this: taken straight up into the sky, through the not-quite dividing line of branches between one tree and the next. I can imagine there's a conversation going on here. Slow, and rather rustle-some, but I'm sure no less entertaining and interesting because of it!

As a side note, I've decided that I'm going to add a hundred steps to the total for the day. Most of the puddles that dotted and/or drenched the paths had to be leapt over (or at least tip-toed and squealed over, in somewhat cartoon style) so I'm awarding myself those extra steps for the additional energy it took to splash, jump, and dodge around this waterlogged course! Because my slightly damp feet tell me I can!

Apologies for the formatting - Blogger is playing around with my paragraphs and wants everything to be centred from the middle down, even though I'm forever clicking on justified alignment for the text. Very zen, I'm sure, but annoying to my rather pernickety visually perfectionist self.