After weeks of incessant rain in Marbella Town, a glorious sun-filled day and the opportunity to spend my birthday as I’d optimistically planned; a walk in silence through the open-skied, fertile fields of Coín’s Rio Grande valley with friends and dogs, a picnic by some ruins and a siesta by a burbling brook.

In the hope that it will inspire you to get out in nature to see for yourselves what marvellous magic this rainfall has brought to our natural surrounds, I thought I´d share some photos of this glorious day spent in rain-drenched nature and some memories of our silent walk that I jotted down in my notebook when I got home.  Hope you enjoy…

Through narrow winding roads and muddy tracks we drove, past meadows with grazing cows, a passing ancient tractor, across a gushing river and then we stopped and walked in silence though an endless rural living canvas.

Olive groves and distant mountain tops, fields and fields of planted crops and all the while the clouds like cotton balls, scudding across the bluest of skies.

Warm breeze upon my face, rippling wheat and wind-ruffled hair. Buzzing bees and yellow butterflies, chirruping birds and the edible scent of rain-soaked soil.

Mud underfoot, skirting around pond-sized puddles, wagging tails and happy trotting paws and the kinship between us friends, as we walk through this living canvas of Mother Nature’s rural landscape artistry, in all of its diversity: Each immersed in our own awed silence, our spirits soothed, our faces kissed by the sun, our heads and hair stroked by the breeze.

And so, we breathed…

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And then it was back indoors for tea and a delicious home-baked cake – what a magical birthday indeed!

Thank you to my friends, both two and four-legged, for your love and company and to Mother Nature for filling my day and my heart with sun.

Text & photos (except the ones of me!) by Liz Glazer