Powkie's Footsteps

The spring has finally made itself felt along the river here and the greenery is spurting out of the ground almost pathologically fast - I cannot see how these spindly tendrils will last long enough to bear flowers and fruit and reproduce.

The plants and trees seem to grow overnight and it reminds me of the tales my mother told me about visiting the rhubarb cathedrals in the triangle - lit only by candles, she describes how the growth was audible, in sinister vegetable creaks. The monks rhubarb must surely do the same thing; from alien, granular pod one day to a full umbrella the next..

Bob the greyhound and I set off up the river to find a dooking pool for swims when the sea is too rough - last Autumn I spotted, round a corner of a rocky outcropping, the distinctive smooth and dark water of a decent pool, but couldn't stop to have a dunk because I was with my neices who were on a mission to explore the rest of the river and its banks, on our way home.

Bob is tolerant of posing amongst the Monk's Rhubarb, he is a speedy force of nature too, so he is at home.

We started our walk about a mile from the possible pond and using mixed terrain - sometimes on the bank, sometimes in the pebbly shallows and sandy "beaches" of the river we waded and trudged through the bright green light of the canopy over the water - the heron was disturbed and flew off, rather like a teradacytil in shape, and in the tidal part of the river it is permitted to fish, I believe, although the heron does not pay attention to these boundaries.

We found the pool, fed by its own short but thick waterfall, the water must be over six feet deep and I wish I had come prepared for a dip.