The clearing

The woods above Puck's Glen are, to put it mildly, in a bit of a mess these days. I suppose that's just what happens when we don't interfere: trees grow tall and vulnerable and are blown down in the winter gales. Some work has been done to clear paths where trees have blocked them, but otherwise there are places where a tangle of fallen trunks and great plates of soil and roots make the ground impassable. 

So it was good to come upon this clearing, with its mossy grass and the varied shapes of the trees surrounding it, in the middle of a walk especially chosen to get us out of the wind.

Winter gales, did I say? As I post this now, an easterly wind is throwing rain at my study window. Cool gales shall fan the glade, and all that ...