The Wakerly Woods Walk with Forest Bathing 2024. Part two.

The Forest Bathing walk: part 2

The Wakerly Woods Walk with Forest Bathing part 1 was published here

In this collection, the photographic evidence comes from Simon Bradford while the commentary comes from someone who was wearing a brown t-shirt and managed to get himself at the front of the picture (typical!)

Worse is the illogical nonsense on this walker’s shirt, with two lego pieces holding hands.  One is saying “Lego” and the other is saying “No!”

I mean, really – no wonder he was put at the front where the other walkers couldn’t see him.

But still, dear reader, notice instead the verdant whatnots growing merrily all around and about.

However, I hear you cry, what is this “Forest Bathing” of which one hears so much these days?  (All right not that much but some, if you are listening properly.)

Well in the Peterborough Ramblers’  context what it means is going to a very peaceful place in the forest where there is no extraneous noise, finding a place to one’s liking and then simply lying or sitting there and taking in the  slightest sounds of the forest all around.

We have been doing this for about three years I think  – maybe four, and it has attracted quite a number of walkers.

As for the “bathing” part, as you can see here, one of our number is sitting with back against the tree.

Personally I like to lie flat on the ground, so take along a light garment that can be placed on the soil and which allows me to lie flat, close the eyes, and simply rest.

And I have to admit, that this time, for the first time, I actually fell asleep.  I am not sure that is the thing one is supposed to do, but since this is the Ramblers and I’m the guy who writes the website, no one complained probably out of fear as to what I would say in the next post.

And speaking of the next post, this picture shows a post with an inscription, which I did see on the walk and was most taken by it.  It says,

Ironstone Workings. 

The pits are old mineral workings probably for ironstone which was near enough to the surface to be dug by hand.

Similar pits, in nearby woods were made in about 1800 but some may be much more ancient.”

As you can see the writing itself is becoming a little difficult to read, but up close it can still be readily deciphered.

This next picture shows the landscape, or perhaps treescape around the place where the commemorative marker was placed beside the track.

And I must say that the fact that this memorial refers to a time two and a quarter centuries ago, and that the woodland has since then been allowed to grow back to its natural state, is something I am very, very pleased to witness.

But now I want to take you away from your contemplation of the trees and pathway, and indeed old mining habits to glance if you will, at the final picture in this selection below.

What is it that we are looking at on the ground in the final picture?

I have not been back to Simon to ask, but I can tell you I am not at all sure of what this is.

Is it just a rock of an unusual shape, or something far more sinister?   But I say to myself “no, surely not something more sinister.  Not on a Ramblers Walk.   Surely not.”

No of course not.  It is one of us, forest bathing.  All is fine.