Hours of wonderful tennis to enjoy from Wimbledon, some rather warm weather and some very windy days too, have conspired to keep me indoors (rather guiltily!) When I have been out, it's been refreshing to walk by water and among trees. The fresh greens of spring are giving way to that darker, rather dull and dusty, uniform green that summer adopts but, even so, the effect of all that green is cooling and soothing.
Various scientific studies have confirmed the cooling effect of trees but you don't need a research study to notice the difference between a hot urban pavement and a shady woodland walk. We need more trees everywhere, for all sorts of reasons.
I'm grateful for plenty of local options - woodland, parks, riverside and canalside... even if the walk home, uphill on hard pavements, often feels like a slog. Once home, I can cool off with an iced drink. I can hardly keep up with the necessary production of ice cubes (though I refuse the option of actually buying a bag of them from the supermarket!).
Given the dry weather since early spring, Yorkshire Water has just announced a hosepipe ban. That in itself isn't an issue for me as I have no need of hosepipe for anything, but it will perhaps mean that the local hand car wash has to close, so I'll be driving around with a dusty car. (A bucket wash, from a first floor flat, isn't really feasible.)
The heron had the right idea, standing with his feet in cool water. I wonder if the low water level in the river impacts their feeding? Maybe it makes it easier to find the fish?
Trees yes yes! I wonder why so many have tilted across water, but somehow continue to hold onto the banks with their trunks extended like that one you captured.
ReplyDeleteTrees make such a difference.
ReplyDeleteAs a whole, we have known for a very long time how important trees are, and yet we keep cutting them down and sealing surfaces in towns, all for the sake of the modern god of mobility, the car.
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