You can't stop the rain by worrying about it

It’s brave a move scheduling a date in October for a walk in the woods. Optimism is fed on those warm sunny days, only to be drenched upon when the day arrives and the rain pours. This was the tone for our walk at Blean Common last weekend, heavy rain, showers and wind all before 10:30, our meeting time.

Showers so saturating they permeate soils until they’re so doused they flood entirely.

Even the hardy are deterred by this kind of whether.This does however give the walk an energetic tone. Sprightly strolls become animated and jaunty as you lunge from puddle to puddle. But under the canopy there is a softness to the rain, the leaves that are left break it’s fall, making it’s intensity feel more like a melt than a complete dousing.
Although the season are changing and there are many leaves on the forest floor it was still a very green walk. Bracken, broom and gorse marked the edge of the pathway, and low in the margins of the tiny heather flowers and wood scabious bloomed.