Slipping through the mist

The crunch of my boot seemed unnaturally loud as I walked along the track. It seemed rather intrusive.

Smudged by the mist, the distant wistful song of an unseen bird, it's tune distorted and hollow sounding, seemed to echo around the trees.

Moss trotted on ahead, sniffing and following scents, reading different stories to the ones I could see with my eyes. Her ears pricked and listening to sounds I did not hear.

A faint dripping sound as the trapped mist ran down branches and collected at the tips, wobbling a while then dropping to the leaf litter below. 

Above me I could hear the breeze shush through the upper tree level, it was almost lazy as it swirled through the branches. I could just about feel it's chilly touch on my left check as we walked.

Along the route we were watched over by the guardians of the woods, it was magical finding them as they silently appeared out of the gloom.

A Victorian home, now an outdoor centre - looking forlorn, sulked with curtains half closed and an air of abandonment. I know that the pandemic has pushed it to the brink - it remains to be seen if it can recover....

Storms Arwen and Barra have certainly left their mark with hundreds of trees flattened it their wake.

Trees twisted and torn, still hanging or leaning on telephone wires, some cleared, others still looking shocked and felled.

It was eerie and beautiful in one moment. The dampening from the mist making sounds soft and muffled and the view fading until invisible.

I could hear the lapping of the water in the tarn and knew from years of walking along this route that the tarn, unseen, was a few meters away, the only confirmation being the wooden sculpture and the shadowy shape of the boat house.

The air was chilly and I'd reached the furthest point on our walk, time to turn and return back to the car.

 It was a brief escape - one that would have been longer if there'd been time, however for that magical half hour, Moss and I evaporated into the landscape and walked with memories and plans.