Lucy meets 'bog monsters'....

Did yesterdays visit to the trails manage to dispel my melancholy mood I here you ask? Well if you have little time upon your hands and you just require the summary then the short answer is yes, indeed a hundred times yes! For those of you who have the leisure of not caring about time passing by, then you are more than welcome to read on.

As soon as I abandoned the keyboard we threw our selves into the fun cruiser which, apart from fresh water, generally has everything now permanently loaded that we require for going walking upon impulse. I wasn’t expecting to do more than a couple of miles as the air was humid and oppressive, walking in this heavy atmosphere was unlikely to lift my mood a great deal or endear me to the bog monster for that matter, who was likely to spend any distance further than a mile panting and looking generally morose! We headed up to the woods at Nercwys, driving through a cloud burst of a shower. Result, the downpour had freshened the air no end and as we tumbled from the car, eager to be on our way, birdsong rose to a crescendo all around us as the birds welcomed the suns rays spearing through thinning cloud.

As we delved deeper into the woods I was awestruck by the recent growth that the past warm and wet spell had induced in the local flora. The vegetation was now rapidly encroaching upon the trails covering everything with a bright green carpet. And the smells, only in the woods can odours like this after a flash downpour fill your senses and lift you spiritually and almost bodily so that you feel as if your floating instead of my usual heavy footed tramping, wondrous indeed.

Our route would shortly take us alongside and then beyond a recently reconstructed garden wall. The garden belonged to a solitary cottage (of which now even the footings are not really visible in the undergrowth) that existed here when the land was moorland, before managed woods took over. In recent months the walls have been reconstructed by a group of volunteers under the direction of the forestry commission and now produce what initially looks like a coral in the middle of the woods. I had thought that this was to be the last of the work done here but as we approached the gateway of the ‘coral’ Lucy started showing much more than a passing interest to whatever was within the dry stone wall enclosed space. I approached carefully hoping to observe some wildlife that had piqued Lucy’s interest. Well there was certainly an animal within, but not what I’d expected.

I counted eight of the little tykes and oh boy were they cute (although for some reason I couldn’t help but think of apple sauce at the time). I’m at a loss as to the reason that they have been placed here, time allowing I’ll have a scan on the commission’s web site and see if there is any information about them. I think that they are Tamworth pigs although there may well be a little Gloucester Old Spot in them. With a sense of well being we headed around the final few miles of our track, Lucy using the puddles as cooling posts at every opportunity.

As we approached the car park we came across a clump of welsh poppies, ablaze against the back drop of the stone wall.

Had the walk done the trick, well apart from my legs aching like the devil, yes I was able to survive last night’s shift, the ache serving to remind me of where my footfalls had been, and where they may well take me in the future. It is certainly better to get ‘out there’ instead of just wishing for a change in fortune. Well it's off to bed for me now, one more twelve hour night to go and then off for a week catching up on quality time with Clare.

Thank you for reading, take care,

John