Standing barely six feet high it was however the route into a world of wildness and discovery.
Behind this tiny rise lies the jungle of early childhood, a magical and shadowy land of twisted rhododendron and smooth spreading beech.
These were the first steps into a world of wild freedom and one where the child’s animate conversation with trees, soil and clouds was as natural as the beating heart of a wolf
Even after all these years so many of these trees are as familiar to me now as they were in those far off childhood days.
There is no melancholy in this reacquaintance though, rather an easy familiarity and of the renewal of old bonds.
From between these trees the happy sound of children’s laughter spills down the slope and somewhere in the copse another soul is taking their first teetering steps into the vivacious and utterly magnificent world of nature.
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Photo courtesy of the author.