I stepped out into mizzle on Thursday evening; not remembering, until I opened the front door, that the forecast had been for rain later. I was fully prepared for whichever way the weather might go; dressed up in my scarf, so I barely hesitated to the gate and right.
The moisture in the air was too heavy for mist and, anyway, left the atmosphere mostly transparent. I sucked in a lung-full through my open mouth, hoping to taste it. Whatever flavour there was was too illusive for such an experiment, although I thought much later that I tasted the droplets off my lip, polluted by then by my face I expect.
Dampness was soaking into the scenery and, slowly, my clothes and hair, but the temperature was mild enough that this caused no discomfort with the light exercise of the walk. Under overhanging trees occasional drips fell. My feet found a common path suited to the conditions and my footwear (not chosen for mud).
Few people showed willing to share the conditions. A half dozen cyclists, cheerfully coupled and heads up, smiling; a couple of dog walkers, retractable leads at full stretch; two cars I think once I returned to a road. At the Southerly extent I thought for a moment that the jackdaws had found me again, but then realised that this black flock in the mist were cawing and not chiming; rooks I suppose. Sparse ponies on the lawns, but no foals in near view. I stopped to look at a fallen beech branch - rotted through, but still with green leaves despite the bubbling fungus on the bark. Wreckage around this branch (all of 35 feet long) showed the efforts used to remove it from the adjacent road to the opposite side from its parent tree.
Against expectation, the precipitation reduced slowly in the three quarter hour I walked. The clearing air revealed 80 percent cloud cover and the moon and a few other heavenly bodies clearly glowing. Unsettled conditions are expected to persist, but the wind from the South-West makes it bearable, even pleasant.
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