'Woodpeckers' crossing the waterfall

We've had a cosy Christmas day taking things at our own pace, which has been delightfully slow. We prepared the ingredients for our nut roast lunch so we could blow the cobwebs away before the cooking and eating commenced. The sun even managed to peak out between layers of clouds as we headed off down the path beside the house for a short walk to the waterfall, one of our favourite places.

Neither of us had recently walked in the wooded pastures which cover the hillsides of the two valleys we look out over. Last night I stood outside the back door at midnight and listened to the quiet of Christmas, and I could hear the sound of the stream crashing over the rocks and stones as it drops steeply down the Horns Valley. When we reached the Lime Brook we could see there was more water than we've ever seen before.

Then we climbed up the slippery slopes which in places have outcrops of clays which produce waterlogged ground. Crossing over the old Wey, the ancient track which drops down from the high ground to a point where the main river can be forded, we walked up and along Happy valley, as Helena calls it to the swing tree. That is an old maple, which I have seen looking like a mature tree in photographs from 1906, and is still the centre piece of the meadow leading up to the waterfalls. Woodpeckers tried to climb on for a swing, but the rope has been rehung and shortened so it was hard to clamber up.

We then went on up the tributary stream and found a cascade of water coming down from the area called The Heavens. The single stream has now become a series of torrents, which are popping out of the ground in springs and flowing widely down through the old coppiced woodland. Where the water meets an outcrop of hard limestone below the layers of clay, the relatively deep gorge produces a waterfall even at the driest of times. Now it was really gushing down and very noisy. Helena went up the side of the small gorge to play. I was down at the bottom of the falls looking up the hillside, and you can see in the background some of the water flowing down from on high. Helena crossed over the top of the waterfall gingerly, hanging onto the limbs of the tree to avoid slipping on the clay, whilst rather acting up to the camera. We both like this picture and it will remind us of a lovely holiday.

The sun had already disappeared and it began to drizzle, and then to pour down with rain, as we set off back through the woods on a different track to go home for lunch.