Country diary: an ancient forest offers protection from the elements

Glen Feshie, Cairngorms: These trees are the remnants of a coniferous rainforest that spread across Britain after the last ice ageLight brightens the tent and nudges me out of sleep. Dawn must have arrived. I open my eyes, expecting morning light, but instead see soft silver shapes flickering across the tent fabric - moonbeams, diffused through the swaying limbs of the huge Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) under which my tent is pitched.My watch says 3.34am. I unzip the door of the tent and look outside. The previous day was overcast, but the weather is restless and squally, and the wind has torn open a rift in the clouds. The moon is startling in its unsullied brightness. Metallic light plays across the dark forest. Blaeberry and heather bushes, wet with rain, gleam in the lunar glow. Moonlit scraps of cloud drift across the sky like smoke. Continue reading...