Wetlands Woods - How Even a Tiny Spot of Green Can Lift Your Spirits.

We live next to a municipal plot of trees - optimistically called a 'wood'. Its is only 17 hectares, has no official name, but my persistent publishing in the local newspaper about it during the early years of this Millennium has coined the name "Kooisteebos". 

It has grown for 25 years by now, and has turned into a green haven for the people of our part of town. The foresters of the owner, Staatsbosbeheer, tend to ignore it (thank Frith!) for most of the time, they only turn up occasionally to cut down a part of it and cart the logs away. 

And for the last couple of years it has become very popular with dog walkers, as it has turned into the only part of this side of town where you are still allowed to let Boris run free. Thus I tend to choose the very early or very late hours to enter it. I do like dogs, but not when there are too many of them at the same time.

This windless drizzly  Sunday morning I was the only one there; except for the birds. I heard the green woodpecker, the many kinds of tits, the robins, the jays, the jackdaws and the cuckoo. Whilst my Gina was sniffing the grass, I noticed the hundreds of snails who were marching up the trees. Are they expecting high water? 

Ever since I noticed the birds falling silent seconds before a minor earthquake hit (me in) Athens, I keep an eye on things like that.

All this green always manages to lift my heart, however heavy it is. I was raised near the sea, but give me a forest.

The locals call this flower "Kikkerbloem" (Frogs Flower), as it appears when the frogs are marching and mating. It is like Belgian Lace, and gorgeous, and smells very green. 

This path marks the edge of the Kooisteebos; after this there are the polders, with lots of potatoes and fodder corn, and onions.

I know, it is not spectacular, not at all. But it is my green haven.