I leaned against the window frame watching the rain dripple sadly down the outside of the glass for yet another day, and I imagined myself as a beautiful woman in a music video staring pensively out to a rainy day longing for her love to return, except my longing was not for a man, but for the sun. Oh sweet sun, where fore art thou?
It had been raining steadily every day of 2026 in The Forest
of Dean, or at least it felt like it; it had been the wettest January on record
and seemed like it was going to be the wettest February as well. The persistent
damp wetness and misery of it was depressing.
They say there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes, but
this really was bad weather, and on some especially wet days, no amount of
waterproof trousers, puddle suits, waterproof jackets, thick jumpers, hats,
gloves, scarves or wellies could tempt us to walk outside.
However, there were rare days where we did decide to brave
it, simply because we couldn’t face another day shut it without fresh air or
sunlight on our skin (no matter how weak) and those days were, to little boys
at least, an adventure.
We stopped one day on the way back from church at a spot
beside a stream where we had paddled in the summer and played in the gentle
flowing waters which bubbled merrily over the pebbles. We had stood up to our shins in the slowly
flowing water, sun on our backs, and skimmed stones over its smooth, glassy
surface. We had plunged our arms into the fresh cold water to pick up a
particularly interesting stone or to try and catch a tiny fish which flashed
through our fingers and away into the weeds.
At one deep spot the boys had even jumped into the water in their
swimming trunks and played in the friendly pool, leafy green bowers overhead creating
a living, summery roof and forming dappled light which sparkled across the
surface of the shimmery water, and kept us warm n spite of the cool freshness
of the water.
This day could not have been more different. The water rushed down that same stream in an
angry torrent, at least four feet higher than in the summer. It foamed and gushed, brown and heaving. The
landscape was utterly changed. Where the
stream had previously wound and twisted, now it gushed in one straight, furious
river. Trees, which the boys had
previously swung from, had been swallowed up into the ranging water and still
others hung precariously over the edge, their roots just barely clinging onto
the bank. At one spot roots jutted out
absurdly across the stream where the water had washed away the surrounding
soil, leaving the roots exposed and vulnerable, like stranded, bony limbs
reaching out for rescue.
After so much rain, the water no longer looked friendly and
inviting, but menacing and hostile.
Where in the summer the cool water had been inviting, now it was
frightening, and, as my children crept to the edge of the stream bank, craning
their necks to get a better look over the edge,
horrible fantasies flashed uninvited into my head of them falling in,
being sucked under and dragged down the stream, then getting tangled in
nature’s flotsam and jetsam of logs and sticks which traversed the stream,
creating a deadly barrier to trap and ensnare and drown.
I quickly pulled them away from the edge, shook the image
out of my head and encouraged them that it was time to go home.
The footpath beside the stream was a muddy, slippery mess, and
we skidded and slipped our way back to the car, sometimes we had to use
stepstones or logs to cross massive puddles to avoid filling our wellies with cold,
brown water, balancing precariously like tightrope walkers, holding hands to
balance and traverse and parts that were impossible to walk through, we finally
made it back to the car and headed home to our dry house.
The windscreen wipers flashed furiously across the
windscreen in a fruitless attempt to clear the water from my view. At the side
of the road rainwater poured, like newly formed streams, down the road, in some
spots creating huge puddles which stretched across the entire road. As I drove through, great waves of water flew
up and crashed like tidal waves into the nearby hedges and across the car, the
children thought this was fantastic! A muddy carwash! I on the other hand was
less enamoured, and more concerned about flooding the engine, or accumulating water
in our already very rusty chassis. We made it home without calamity and ran to
the house for shelter. How grateful I
was to find my husband had turned on the heating and we were able to hang our
sodden jackets up to dry and warm ourselves inside.
Rain was a familiar sight in the Forest of Dean, I wonder if
it is part of why Foresters are so stoic and hardy seeming, they have had to
endure. But then, I considered, the rewards
that came in spring just about made the misery of the rainy winters worth it,
for come April the fields and forests would be lush and green again, all those
rainy days preparing the ground for new-life, growth and abundance.
The raindrops
continued to dribble sadly down the window glass as I fantasised about the
coming warmth of spring. Not long now, I
thought to myself. On the horizon I
spotted a small hole in the clouds, and blue sky, hope! I can’t rain forever!
