Yes, through the woods and more

Folks in Madrid & Darmstadt have been hankering after another forested blog entry, so here goes: It's been fine for cycling in the last few weeks - sometimes cold and frosty but this week ever milder until today's mildly damp forest paths - but they had had such a dearth of moisture in the last 2 months that the ground absorbed the rain of the night, now mercifully past, leaving it not muddy but just faintly moist. The crows were in good form and the team of woodpeckers could again be heard chiselling away - though this year I still only caught one briefly in flight visually. It was a fine morning cycle - had the paths virtually to myself - just 2 distant cyclists at one or two junctures. As I glided through I could put on a burst of speed, hunching over the handlebars to give maximum traction - this without undue effort as I had husbanded my strength by letting the slow school children set the pace in town, before i made a break for the woods. There was feeling of great goodness present in the air - I reflected on Jurgen Habermass and his theory of communicative handling and the sad fate of the Easterner on the bio-doc last night. It behoves us to act with calmness and decency in this societal interaction.