Slowing Down To A Walk

I was up too late for my run this morning and so I decided to walk my usual running route instead. I let myself pause from time to time to take in everything that was around. I saw a couple of trees that had come down - this one a bit of oak that had gone into the river and in Shalford Park a bigger willow had snapped. I'm guessing it's more about weight of water than particularly strong winds. Both had broken half way down rather than being uprooted.

Just after the railway bridge I had a little engagement with a dragonfly and because of what happened next I wrote the story down in my notebook immediately.

"I'm walking by the river having an imaginary conversation with someone. It's really important that I'm right about what I'm saying and that they understand me and are impressed with my knowledge. In the middle of this, a dragonfly flies across my face. I stop and watch it. I hear "Be prepared to stop and watch what's actually happening". So I watch it zoom around the riverbank for a minute or two. Then it flies or is blown out into the middle of the river. It gets very close to the water's surface and I think 'how amazing to be able to control like that and not fall in. Oh how cute! It's having a drink of water!'. and then I realise that it's no longer hovering just above the surface, and it's not just dipping part of itself in the water. It's stuck, gradually but very quickly it becomes too wet to fly away and just floats, still and dead in the tiny waves and ripples blowing it along till it's out of sight."