A Walk in the Woods

Walking alone in the woods is a different thing. No matter how bright the sun shines or how calm the weather, there is uncertainty; an uncertainty that doesn’t follow you on any other walk. Even if you’re following a good path, being unable to see beyond the next tree has an effect on your psyche. And quite soon you experience the feeling that you can no longer be seen by anyone else – and you really are on your own.

I can’t help exploring, and I wander off up a path I haven’t followed before. My first spot is a rhododendron bush coming into flower in October when it normally blooms in May; seems really odd but then it’s just this unseasonal good weather.

But I turn off the path to the right and suddenly I’m in a large conifer plantation and it’s so much darker and there’s no undergrowth; a barren space. It’s the scene for a grim fairy tale, the habitat of elves, goblins and trolls, or that location from a crime novel: the spot where the mutilated corpse is found. Actually, there’s nothing much to see, so I move back out of the firs onto the established path.

After a few steps, there’s a thump behind me. What was that?

I look around and ….. nothing!

Then something else flies past my head and lands with a thump on the ground.

Someone? …. throwing things at me?

I suppose I could now make a meal of this. I could have an exaggerated physiological reaction of sweating, pounding temples, and hair standing up on my neck. I could rapidly review a list of everyone who has a grudge against me, or I could just panic over the potential for a imminent ‘Deliverance’ type experience.  But it wasn’t like that.

The corner of my eye catches a movement and there, at the base of a horse chestnut tree, a squirrel, a grey, scampers off at the sight of me.

Then ‘Thump!’ again and I see what’s happening. There on the grass is the empty casing of a chestnut. Up above, the squirrel’s mate will be there, hidden in the higher branches, gorging herself on a bumper crop of chestnuts, and casually dropping empty husks down around my head.

Explanation! Relax! Just settle! ………………………..and then I find the Hollow Tree.