Red sky in the morning

The heathland, so sodden and saturated of late, today took on a fresh new crispy aspect; the surface softly crunching under foot as you walked through the ghostly grasses and heathers, dusted white with a gentle frost. The sky had an orange red hue as the sun slowly rose over and through the clouds which hugged the horizon. 'Red sky in the morning, Shepperd's warning', that's how the old saying goes, and today the red sky was warning of the cold to come. Hardy ponies, how they do it I just don't know, were searching under the edges of the heather clumps and gorse stands for succulent green grass protected from the frost by their twiggy blankets.

Mornings like this remind me why it's worth making the effort to get up early and getting out to the forest in order to experience the beauty of natures waking.