One of the things I enjoy most about London is that we are a short tube ride from the heart of the city and yet when I walk my dog I can lose myself in a green fields and trees. The country is at my doorstep. I frequently walk the dog at a place we call the Reserve. We speak of it as if it is a well known spot for tourists yet really it is one of many quiet reserved spaces located in every borough where nature can get on with it. It is truly a gift to all the locals not only dog walkers. Dog walkers just find these places a little more often as our ramblings are driven by our dogs energy levels .
On Wednesday of this week the reserve still echoed the trill of the surviving cicadas and grasshoppers from the summer months. When the sun peaked out of the clouds I stripped off my sweatshirt and was still warm in a tank top. When the path lead beneath the trees I appreciated the coolness and thought it better than central ac. The last of the bramble berries were fermenting and a fruity smell drifted around . The mud in the old watering hole was becoming baked and fields were browning The 4 foot sticks that had once been towering lush weeds made me sure that there wasn't much water left in these once wet lands.
Thursday the reserve had a chance to begin its change back to the wetlands. Rain fell and cascaded from the trees especially while I was under them. As nature does get on with things in the reserve there was a wild array of weeds. Some of these grew over 5 feet high this summer. I know this as they were distressingly taller than me at some points around the path. There are the usual nettles and brambles and a immense number of varieties of green I can't name. But on Thursday there was one in particular that stood out. It was a reddish tinged plant, whose multiple stems were slight and each ended in a triad of round tips (once flowers). These tips caught the water droplets and held them so this weed was a shimmering vision. A red skeleton decked out in glittering droplets.
It wasn't the only thing shimmering as Thursday was also marked by the return of the spiders. First I noticed a stickiness across my face when I walked between two bushes. I looked frantically around for hitchhikers at that point. But the real webs were strung between stalks and weeds and the biggest catch today had been raindrops. The webs had a spotted spider sitting right in the middle just like I've seen in National Geographic pictures and documentaries on the BBC.
Today I walked in the reserve past the mud hole that now had a small amount of standing water. The first mud of the season!! Even more exciting was the fact that my dog didn't find it. He is white. The cicadas and grasshoppers were all quiet but what replaced them was the movement of hundreds of thousands of leaves rubbing against each other as a fresh breeze blew. It is an incredibly big sound. Like waves crashing on the beach fills me with an awe of the sea, the breeze forcing its way through the trees filled me with awe. Walking under the trees today I zipped up my fleece and I realized within the past few days autumn has arrived.
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