The First Days of Rain
This summer has been endless, endless days of heat and dry. The warmest summer on record and the driest since 1995.
Although it was enjoyable to be able to spend so much time outside and walking without thinking of coats and rain, it was quite stressful. Wildfires sprang up all over Pembrokeshire which is unusual here, not to mention the wildfires elsewhere, by mid August there had been 745 wildfires in the UK alone.
I know in some climates wildfires are needed for plants to regenerate and seeds to germinate but it’s not far from that climate in the UK and most of them aren’t even natural. Some are caused by camp fires and BBQs, some by purposeful destruction and clearance for grazing/grouse shooting and some just a carelessly tossed cigarette butt into drought ravished undergrowth, which goes up like tinder. Everything suffered this year, the trees turned brown early, brambles started to bare their berries at the end of July due to stress and undergrowth was dying back to bare ground.
So it was a relief for me when the first rain came, like hearing an old friend for the first time in years. Walking and feeling the drops on my skin, which is so often annoying, felt heavenly and so refreshing, it was almost like I’d been parched along with the plants and wildlife. Even soggy toes through my shoes was a delight!
It began one evening with a storm brewing over the hills. Brochan and I had planned on going for a walk, but as we left the van and made our way to the foot of the mountains we could hear rumbling thunder. I am nervous of thunder after a bad experience in Glen Nevis, getting caught out in a flat bottomed valley with lighting right over our heads…so I said I wanted to just get back to the safety of the van. We drove to a lookout spot out with a perfect view of the coming storm and watched the amazing colours and clouds.
Once the lightning started flashing we decided it was time to head back to Brochan’s house and shelter. He has a porch with plastic corrugated roofing which amplified every “pit” and “pat” of the rain as it fell. I stood out to listen to it and once it had passed the land glistened in the evening sun, the dust and heat washed away.
The new day we went for a walk in Cwm Gwaun, a beautiful old valley near us that somehow we’d never explored on foot. It was such a delight to set off in waterproofs, feeling the rain hit out faces and actually feel a chill! The hill where we started was shrouded in mist and we couldn’t see very far ahead of us. Mountain ponies loomed out of the white and the mist made the colours of the heather and gorse seem to almost glow. I love the silence in cloud and fog, it deadens all the noise of the world and can make you feel utterly alone. No sound of jets overhead or cars on the road. Just a peaceful, pressing quiet.
The smell of petrichor hung in the air as we descended down into the wooded valley, that sweet, earthy fragrance of baked earth touched by rain for the first time in too long. The old oaks were twisted, arching over the path and everything seemed brighter and greener, even after so little rain. We followed a path along the valley bottom, running by the Gwaun River. I felt odd how we were still in the thick of summer but the colours were already turning to autumn and the path carpeted in leaves.
We reached the end of the footpath and then began to turn back along the small road which runs through Cwm Gwaun. We had planned to take a path that went up through more woodland and out onto the fields and moors, but it was closed due to tree felling. No one was actually working on it at the time and Brochan wanted to just try walking it anyway but I was afraid we’d get caught and told off! So I made us turn all the way back down the path we had climbed and walk along the road to the next path that would take us up and back to the van.
It was a beautiful little path, through old trees and crumbling walls. I love these places in Wales that feel like they’re forgotten, the paths hardly worn and everything left to grow how it will. Over hung with red berried Rowans and the trees and rocks carpeted with mosses and lichens. Half way up we stopped to have a little break and look at the view down the Cwm before continuing the path through scrubby land and back to the moors and the van.
