The rain in the mic

My bout of hayfever (not an asset to a woodsman) turned to a chest infection so my time in Birling Wood has had to be cut short. I think the hot spell brought all the trees in the Borders out at once. After the icy winter, that much pollen air was a shock to even my outdoor lungs.

Bought a scarf and carried on with it wrapped round my face like a smoggy city dweller but no good.

However I persisted until the rain came. Sound equipment doesn't like rain nor the recorder. No good input. Couldn't breathe so have been staying in one of my NFA shelters. Here I have been woken by willow warblers and pied flycatchers, a deer at my windowsill - the house is derelict - but I am able to stay now and then on sufferance amongst the sheep feed. Thankfully the door is good and tight so rodents are kept to a minimum. It's a red squirrel area too and one can be seen most mornings in what would have been the garden ground. Forget-me-knots, gooseberry and currants still remind you of the previous inhabitants.

I stretch my legs up the field of this glacial valley. And there are always hares. Standing like small people and still, they watch me coming. Some people say hares are a witch's form and when they look at you in a red morning light, well, I can't help wondering if that is true.