It's a dripping wet morning and there's something wonderful about walking across to the library in my bare feet, feeling the wet grass and taking in that earthy, pleasant scent produced when rain falls on dry soil. Petrichor. Thanks, Isabel Joy Bear and Richard Grenfell Thomas, for finding just the right word for it.
(Before you ask: it's pronounced PET + ri + kor, as in "store" or "core".)
The wet morning, the peacefulness, the feeling of solitude, puts me in the mood to watch again one of my all-time favourite movies, "Ring of Bright Water", a movie which I had discovered long before I had ever heard of Gavin Maxwell or read any of his books, let alone that book.
It's arguably one of the most famous and best-selling books of natural history of the twentieth century. Yet the man who wrote it remains a fascinating and enduring enigma, which eventually brought me to the many other books not written by him but about him. My latest discovery is the book "Maxwell's Ghost", written by his close friend Richard Frere. Frere said that Maxwell had asked him on his death-bed to write it, and 'demanded that I write a true and impartial account'.
I've just found a reasonably priced copy of the book on ebay and, as an early Christmas present to myself, immediately ordered it. Another book! But, as they say, when it comes to books, it's not hoarding!
As I eat a piece of 'Lebkuchen', I leave you with the movie's theme song.
