Between rainbows

Vast tree above allotments tool shed, near El Escorial

Again I’ve been up to El Escorial to hike up to the high pass where you can see the Gredos mountains rising in the distance on the other side.

The whole El Escorial valley was filled with a dancing interchange of sun and rain, so that I counted 5 or 6 rainbows in the few hours I was there, some of the boldest and closest I’ve seen. How unbelievably magical is a rainbow? Is there anything that is more enlivening than being outside in close contact with nature when it’s really stirring something up?

On the way home I saw a vast tree rising from a vegetable allotment, above a small tool shed, and stopped on an old stone bridge to sketch it as fast as I could before my hands froze. Last night I told my sister I had a new mantra, ‘walk, draw, write, repeat’, and she said “ha ha, you’ve always got a new mantra”. And as I kept forgetting the order and getting it wrong, I decided to forget about mantras and just do it anyway.