30 Days Wild - The adventure begins with Scottish rain
I am taking part in The Wildlife Trust’s 30 Days Wild challenge – doing something wild every day for the month of June – and will be blogging about my experiences along the way.
Today is day one, but owing to a busy couple of weeks, I have begun in a slightly disorganised fashion. However, nature had a real treat up her sleeve for me this morning. Due to helping some friends out over in Glasgow at the weekend, I was up at the crack of dawn to catch the bus back across to Edinburgh for work. It was a beautiful sunny morning walking down a slumbering Sauchiehall Street, with darker clouds gradually approaching from afar. As I reached Buchanan bus station they were almost overhead and it began raining in front of me. I had the fantastic experience of crossing the weather threshold, from dry into wet! What a way to kick off my nature adventures!
Normally I would have my bike on me to get to and from work, but as a result of my city-to-city commute this morning, my options for getting home were bus or walk. As the close of work approached so did more dark clouds (after a very sunny day!). The bus was tempting but I also had my waterproofs on me, so on they went and out of the building I marched, to walk the hour-long journey home.
After a busy day's work in a warm office, the refreshing rain cleared my senses and calmed my buzzing head. Edinburgh is fortunate to have an amazing network of off-road paths – converted from a historic railway system – that are lined with trees, bushes, wildflowers; a real haven for wildlife and people to thrive amongst. It was along these paths that I wound down to nature’s pace and rhythm.
I’m not the biggest fan of tarmac but in rain it gets totally transformed, and there is one path in particular that is reflection heaven during and after a downpour. Usually I am zooming along it on my bike – which is great fun to get absorbed in the reflections and imagine I am flying in an upside-down world. But walking allowed me to enjoy the experience in a different way. I only had my phone on me, but captured a few shots in an attempt to share how awesome it is!
So those were my little adventures today and a fun way to kick off my 30 Wild Days. Tomorrow I plan to print out my wild month planner, have a proper wild time brainstorm and start to fill it in with some ideas and activities. You can get involved too. Just sign up here. Happy wild day adventuring!
