It’s raining in Stanmer Woods, great fat droplets tap-tapping on leaves while a thousand rivers stream down tree trunks. I wonder where the rain has come from, when it last made land, and which trees and leaves it has known before.
Autumn is just beginning here. I walk in the shadow of the weather, crunching beech mast and kicking the first of the fallen leaves. The woodland floor is dappled with patches of the brightest orange, while stubborn greens hold tight to trees. There are mushrooms to gawp at: jelly fungus on a stump; sulphur tuft and King Alfred’s cakes on logs. I search, in vain, for earthstars and amethyst deceivers, take photos of others I’ve yet to know. Bracket fungi helter-skelter up a tree that stands dead among the living.
There’s magic to the woods when it rains. Something otherworldly, Narnia-esque; I can’t imagine why anyone would want to be stuck indoors. It’s wet, but not too wet – the rain falls on leaves above me and most of it channels along branches and trunks. There are few people here, and I can stop and look at things without being noticed. Blackbirds turn leaves, robins sing a sad song, there is, briefly, a chiffchaff.
The woods seem cleaner, fresher during rain. Dust and other residues wash off leaves until they glisten, water pools among the tree roots, and the rest is swallowed by grateful earth. Everything feels new, including me. Is this forest bathing?
After a summer of drought, rain still feels special. I leave windows open at night so I can wake when it falls, I obsess over water butts, I watch frogs leap across the garden. Sometimes I catch myself humming or whistling when the water comes; it truly makes me happy. As the kettle boils in the first light of morning, I crouch beneath the shed roof and watch it fall.
In the woods, the pattering of raindrops on leaves is music, the pools of water in tree roots are wine. I know that rain can be just a deadly and miserable as drought, but for now this human and a thousand trees are savouring every drop.
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