The Silence Rises

Trying to breathe through it

I’m trying hard to move quietly. I’ve brought my kayak to the water and I’m paddling upstream to a bend in the river which is overgrown with willows and oaks, the trees draping into the water. It’s the closest thing I’ll find to a rainforest, though the Avon is just a hair-strand of wildness surrounded by an utterly tamed landscape. On the way there I’m…