As excited as I am to start my studies, I still have another week until anything properly begins. In that time I really want to get some exploring done, make sure I’m totally familiar with my local area. I find the best walks are the ones where you don’t have a destination, so today I decided to just meander about and see what I can come across! There are a few stops I wanted to make though, but we’ll get to those 🙂

I’m a massive fan of the idea of just disappearing into the woods. If I could viably do that and didn’t have other plans for what I want to do with my life, you’d probably never see me again. I’m kidding… I think, but my point is that I love the woodlands, everything about them I just find absolutely beautiful! So I started my walk in the woods, surrounded by trees and plants, and of course… Mushrooms!

Mycology Corner

A few months ago I got really into the study of mushrooms, known as mycology. I got a few books on them and went on many hikes purely to see the local fungi. So now whenever I go on walks I’m always looking in damp dark areas to see what mushrooms are growing, and this walk really didn’t disappoint!

Mushrooms are really fascinating organisms, a lot of mushrooms only live for around 24 hours, usually after rain. So chances are if you see a fully grown mushroom one day it will be gone if you go back the next day.

Fungi are a vital part of the Earth’s ecosystem, but a lot of what they do isn’t understood yet. Fungi has currently been used in many different parts of life though, from medicine to food production!

Anyway, on with the walk!

Eventually I made my way out of the woods and into some fields, it looks like they were mostly used for crop growing, but most things are out of season right now so these fields are quite barren. I enjoy the solitude of fields like this, when all you can feel is the wind in your hair but there’s almost no sounds around. It’s peaceful. Let’s walk on…

The Weather Station

Whilst walking across a field I saw what looked to be random pieces of metal behind a short fence, so I decided to investigate.

I don’t think I’ve ever properly seen one of these before on my travels, but I imagine they’re dotted all around the country. This is a weather station! They have all sorts of gadgets attached to them so they can measure everything about the environment around them. From what I could read from the information this station measures the humidity of the field and how it affects the moisture in the soil which I imagine is really useful to know for agriculture.

I also found a link to the company that uses the data, so if you want to find out anything more about it, here it is: https://cosmos.ceh.ac.uk/sites/STGHT. I saw a few really interesting graphs on there myself, and it looks like the information is still constantly being read, I just hope my presence didn’t affect the results too much. Perhaps it’s best I kept walking!

The Pond

I continued along until I came across a small stream, it was nearly dried out from the recent sun we’ve had here but there was still a small trickle leading down the hill, so I followed it as best I could, and I’m very glad I did because eventually I happened upon a pond.

I find bodies of water fascinating, they are hosts to millions of forms of life, from ducks to microbacteria, trees to algae, everything that’s anything lives in a pond!

I tried to get as many pictures as I could of the different life that exists here. The tall leafed plants you can see to the leftare known as Bulrush, Cattails, or just Reeds. These ones don’t have the signature bushel at the top but the plant can still be identified by their leaves. They tend to grow in wetlands due to them being semiaquatic, and are actually completely edible to humans! At least, so my research tells me, check for yourself before taking bites out of anything 🙂

Bulrush isn’t the only plants that grow in this pond however, I did my best to get a picture of it without falling in, the small leaves you see in the picture to the right floating on the water? That’s known as duckweed! They’re tiny plants that live in still water, their cell structure contains air pockets which allows them to float on the surface and do what plants do!

Alright, okay, I know what you’re thinking: “Cassie you’re a physicist not a biologist, tell us some physics!” Well don’t you worry because I’ve got you covered on that too! I’ve put the below picture on the largest size I can, it shows a really intersting phenomena of light, partial reflection!

The pond has small amounts of dust floating around in the water, this dust isnt fully permeable by light (the light can’t get all the way through but it can get some of the way) so some of it reflects back out of the water and some of it continues onwards through the water. This is what the almost beams of light are, you can see they look like slanted rectangles which are bright at the top but fade a bit as they go down before becoming a light brown at the bottom (this is just where the light finally hits the dirt at the bottom). It’s a fascinating little thing that only happens when you have dust or fog!

A New Friend

I eventually finished admiring the water, and continued on my hike, but it wasn’t long before I came across the next amazing part of nature: a kind old lady!

I spoke with them a bit, asked them about their thoughts on the area, and showed them a few of the pictures I had taken throughout the day. They told me how much they loved hiking around the area, that they had a group of friends who also loved to walk but as they all aged, the walks became fewer and fruther between, which just made them all the more beautiful when they finally all got out.

It didn’t take long before I felt like I’d known this woman for years, we continued on through the forest together as she told me stories from her childhood and her childrens adventures in the local area. Eventually we came to a fork in the path, I was gonig left, and she right, so we said our goodbyes. I always love meeting new people and learning their paths, I hope she enjoyed meeting me just as much.

A Place to Rest

By now my loop had nearly come to a close, the roads were starting to become more familiar as I neared my flat. There was one final place I wanted to check out, somewhere I’d seen on a few previous walks: an abandoned tennis court.

I believe these tennis courts to be owned by the gym I’m a part of, so I guess I’m technically not trespassing. Also the gate was open…

It’s not often you find a completely open area of tarmac, especially one like this which was surrounded by trees on all sides. It felt strange, like society had long since collapsed and all that remained of humanity was this tennis court. Like it was so distant from people it hadn’t been told to decay.

I lied down on the middle court and felt the sun beating down on me. It was peaceful, difficult to keep myself awake despite how hard the surface beneath me was. It’s a nice thing to do I think, have this time after an adventure to rest and think about everything you’ve just experienced. I hope that no matter what my course brings, I can still find the time to rest and relax.

After that I headed home, I’m in a great mood now, I’ve reconnected with the natural world and I’m ready for whatever the world has to throw at me now. So I’ll leave you with a quote, from my new walking friend:

A walk through nature,
amongst the woods and the trees,
can cleanse your soul
to put you at rest and at ease.

Janet

Farewell!

Cassie