Forest Rest

Ten-thirty on a sodden Thursday morning. The rain showed no signs of stopping any time soon. Rick warmed his hands around his coffee mug and watched the wind drive raindrops down the glass. On the chair beside him his ageing green waterproof dripped a small puddle onto the wooden café floor. The full-length picture windows carried silver outlines of birds, designed to imitate birds of prey in flight. As the raindrops sleeted into the glass and ran down towards the soaked decking outside, the images looked absurd now, reduced to the level of children's transfers.
The decking outside bore a shininess that warned pedestrians to take care. The lichen growing in the ridges said, "here is a place you may- much to the amusement of others- easily fall flat on your backside." Random patches of soaking wet leaves were rain-glued to the decking, multiplying the slip factor.

Grey outdoor furniture stood abandoned. Every so often one or other of the wicker chairs would rock almost imperceptibly in the wind cutting its' way around the corner of the building. Rivulets of fallen rain raced across the glass top of each table. You'd have to be vaguely mad to want to sit out in this September squall. The wispy arms of a huge willow tree, planted to offer shade from Summer sun, whipped erratically back and forth underlining the intensity of the unexpected gusts of wind which battered the south side of the café.

Rick's table sported a Laminated menu wedged into the tight groove cut in a half-round log. These dense offcuts served as a novel way of displaying the menus and were heavy enough to prevent them being blown across the café every time the main door opened.
Rick had been here countless times; just never like this. They did the best wild boar sausage bap for miles around and their coffee was true ambrosia after a long walk or a hard morning's climbing. He usually followed the same ritual designed to prevent him ordering seconds; first snaffle down half of the bap whilst it was still warm; then drink the coffee; finally wolf down the remnants of the delectable pork. Today, however, the bap remained untouched and the coffee was just about palatable. At times like this Rick's appetite often deserted him.

The large wooden building constructed entirely in local timber was the gateway to a conurbation of a hundred or so log cabins. It contained the café, a giftshop and food hall, toilets and the reception desk humorously labelled "Log In". The combined smells from a range of scented candles and incense samplers mixed with the coffee beans and the delicious odours wafting through from the kitchen. It was a good place to be, especially when the weather outside was borderline biblical.
When Rick first came here it was simply a small green Forestry Commission information hut. Back then it sat in control of a mixed caravan and tent site. He and Gina had used it a couple of times when the kids were quite young. They'd been washed out each time. Looking back, Rick felt you should probably expect to suffer from the weather if you camp on the Welsh Marshes. In those days, unlike now, the helpfulness of the staff was a variable feast.
There were no 'vans' or tents here now. They were all ousted to a site half a mile deeper into the forest.

Each log cabin sat in its own mini forest clearing. Equipped with all mod cons – including many with private hot-tubs. They were a new development and judging by the difficulty he'd experienced trying to book one recently, very successful. Rick had spent a terrific weekend here in the spring. One of those family mini breaks that you are keen to repeat, but at the same time worry it might not live up to the first one. They'd walked, talked, eaten and drunk. It had all been over far too soon.

As he stared beyond the rain smeared glass, Rick's mind's eye could still see them sat around those same tables the wind was currently battering. This forest was Rick's favourite haunt of the past thirty years. Today was likely to change all that. It felt like sacrilege to be here in these circumstances. Rick had always gone to great lengths not to allow his two worlds to collide.

The inclement weather was keeping people in their cabins, meaning the shop was reasonably quiet. This would be a good thing. A short queue of people dressed for bad weather waited patiently at the solitary till. There were only three other groups of people in the café. To Rick's left a young couple, early twenties and obviously very much in love, sat with their backs to the windows, almost as if in climate denial. They had arrived just as the waitress delivered Rick's food. They talked excitedly over the menu. How predictable our Atlantic Cousins can be Rick thought. Every now and then one or other of them retreated into an i-phone, presumably to 'tweet' to the world how happy they were, and exactly what they'd been doing in the three minutes since their last broadcast. From their accents Rick placed them as mid-American. Probably their first trip away from 'mom' and 'pop'. On their table an i-pad spilled out of what Rick assumed to be the girls shoulder bag. Between transmissions to their adoring public they discussed plans for the day. Page on top of page was dragged across the screen as they read all about the places they would go, sampled other peoples' pictures and compared the merits of one route over another. Rick sighed internally – a deep mournful sigh for the death of young love, real maps and discovering things once you got somewhere.