Boundary wall at High Stand

The day started off with torrential rain showers and hard gusting winds. A dead rowan, stifled of light by the quicker growing conifers, chose to fall over mid-morning, leaning at an acute angle above the heads of all the visitors using the Gruffalo trail. Of course, this happened just as the car park ran out of bays, someone had parked inside the cones laid out by the yard entrance so that the skip lorry could not collect their skip and the first consignment of Christmas trees arrived. However, Forester Rob was soon on the job deploying the rest of us as banks persons, to hold back the Gruffalo hunters whilst he wielded the chain saw. It was difficult to gauge whether it was water from the sky or the constant douches from the saturated branches that was drenching us most.



I steamed gently all through the drive over to the Eden woods and was pleased to find when I got there that although the sky was full of rain in every direction Coombes Wood and High Stand were both spot-lit by fitful sunshine. As these contain a good proportion of deciduous trees the contrast of the sun-lit yellow leaves against the steely sky was dramatic.  

Sadly, the storm signage only needed to be put at the entrances and there was not time to go deeper into the trees or down to the river, which would have been spectacular.


but in fact, everywhere you looked was a picture in full technicolour.