Sunday 5 June 2016

Another Walk in the Rain... (some of it)

The last time I went walking in the rain (not deliberately) was on Jersey, when most of our cliff path walk was accompanied by a steady but mild drizzle.

Yesterday, my Mum and I decided to brave the rather changeable conditions - it had rained during the night and early morning, but then kept changing between sun and clouds all the time - and finally go for "our" walk, from Marbach train station to my parents' allotment. If you have been reading my blog for a while, you have accompanied us on that walk many times, and I won't hold it against you if you skip this post :-)

Still, although our route is always pretty much the same one, it never really looks the same - nature does not stand still for a moment, and there are other changes, too.

My Mum was so sure we'd already been for this walk together this year, but I knew we had not done this in a while, and checked both my diary and my blog for it. The last time we walked this way was really last year in September.

This time, one of the first things that happened was that my camera's battery went flat - I could not take one single picture. Luckily, my Mum had her camera, too, and she kindly lent it to me for the rest of the day. My cable fits, too, so that I had no problems transferring the pictures to my computer this morning.

You've seen this view from the early stage of the 2-hour-walk before, but never so cloudy, I believe:


We were wondering where a certain path we always walk past (but never on it) was leading, and while my Mum was resting on the bench at the top of the hill, I had a quick look. The path turned very wet and muddy pretty soon, though, and so I gave up exploring until another time and only took this picture:
 

There were a few tiny patches of blue in the sky, leaving us in hope that we'd be reaching the allotment before the next shower:
 

But then the rain started in earnest, and for nearly all of the second half of the route we had to move on and could not sit on any bench for a short break. A lot of the walk is uphill, which is very tiring for my Mum, so a break would have been most welcome.  We had umbrellas, of course, and it was neither cold nor windy, but you simply could not sit anywhere.

I wish I could transmit the wonderful scents of this walk along with the pictures! Dog roses, elderflowers, yasmin, roses, privet hedges - some of the scents were so strong and heady, not even the rain could wash them out of the air.
 
We arrived at the allotment almost exactly two hours after we'd set off, and found that my Dad had prepared everything for coffee and Brezeln inside the little hut:
 

But who was nowhere to be seen was Dad! He'd left his mobile in the hut, too, so we couldn't ring him. My Mum rang home to see whether he'd gone home, but it was unlikely, and only the answering machine took her call.

About 15 minutes later, Dad arrived - he had taken the car to drive along the route he thought we would take, intending to pick us up and get us out of the rain. How sweet of him! Unfortunately, he had not thought of ringing my Mum on her mobile first, to check which way we were walking, and we had taken the other one of the two most likely routes, so he never saw us.

Never mind! We enjoyed our coffee and the brezeln, followed by strawberry pastries. The rain had stopped already by the time we had reached the allotment, and later, the sun came out - and stayed for the rest of the afternoon.

Before I went on another walk (on my own - my Mum really needed to rest now; and you know I HAD to go and visit my favourite place, the Grassy Path!), I took these pictures at the allotment:  





Can you see the mysterious figure in the glass bauble? :-)

I'll take you along for my walk to Grassy Path in my next post.

15 comments:

  1. How kind that your Father was looking for you! And also, how beautiful your parents allotment is! Wow. Like a little piece of paradise! (What do you think? Am I using enough exclamation marks today? Never mind. They are all deserved.)

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    1. It's actually a very typical thing for him to do. Yes, the allotment is beautiful, all year round really, but particularly so this time of year.
      I hope you have some exclamation marks left over and not used up your entire day's quota :-)

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  2. Love your story of sharing a walk in the rain with your Mum. Those are the moments that matter in life, I believe.

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    1. We would have preferred it to be without the rain, so that we could have had a proper rest at some stage, but it was still nice. And I agree with you, such moments matter in life (and they cost nothing!).

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  3. A two hour walk and talk with your mother sounds like a treat. I have the impression that you know how lucky your are and will file today in your memory bank, as well as in your computer.
    Your father knows how to set a pretty coffee table.

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    1. I do indeed know how lucky I am to have both my parents still around, both reasonably fit, and close enough to walk there within 10-15 minutes!
      My Dad has had a lifetime of nicely set tables for every meal with my Mum, and appreciates it, too. He just does not like too many candles on the table around Christmas time :-)

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  4. A selfie in a bauble! It sounds and looks like a lovely walk. It rained here on Friday and Saturday...and now the westerly wind has arrived. I didn't go walking, though...I stayed indoors and read, and watched a couple of movies/shows. I do love the rain...and walking in it never bothers me. I don't own either an umbrella or a raincoat, and haven't done so for many a year.

    It was nice to stroll with you and your Mum. :)

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    1. Wearing glasses, I don't want the rain on my face - just a few drops are enough to make it impossible to see proplery where I'm going and what's happening around me, too dangerous and not very nice.
      Generally, I don't mind the rain, either, and I really love going to bed on a rainy night and listening to it through the half-drawn blinds in front of my open bedroom window, when I'm cosy and snug under the duvet.
      Nice of you to have come along, Lee :-)

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  5. The allotment looks lovely and flourishing, even in the rain! And that view in first photo is really lovely.

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    1. Thank you, Monica! My parents are so pleased to read such positive comments about their garden.
      I really like that view of the winding road, too - it looks so promising somehow.

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  6. Oh dear I think I'm getting a bit distracted these days. I saw your comments about your Dad having driven to get you in your next post and couldn't tie everything up and realised I'd missed this post. I'm glad I discovered it. It shows a real little bit of what I'd consider to be paradise.

    As an aside is 'paradise' the only words that is instantly recognisable as the (almost) same word in German, French, English, Italian, Spanish, Welsh and Gaelic? I don't know it in any other languages.

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    1. It certainly is a little bit of paradise, Graham! In a way, it has even saved my Dad's life.

      Hmmm I expect the word is similar in the Scandinavian languages, too, and probably in Greek as well. I wonder what it is in Russian, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Hindi and Urdu. An interesting question to ponder.

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    2. Well as I know virtually no words in any of those languages and can't even understand most of the alphabets I can't help.

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    3. It's "paradis" in Swedish :)

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    4. I thought so, Monica, and it's the same in Dansk :-)
      (On Bornholm, where one of my aunts lives, is a forest called Paradisbakkerne.)

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