Saturday was a big day for me, the first time I have ever been completely lost in the forest. I set off on my normal route but decided to skirt the path into the forest for antler sheds.  I knew that if I didnt cross the swamp and turned left when I got to it by rights I should end up on my normal path. Well I kept happily walking and searching for antlers, totally confident in my directional plan, but then I turned left and was on the other side of the swamp without actually crossing it. This freaked me out,how could it be? I checked to see the sun but this was a Pacific NW Febuary morning and a dull grey sky loomed above. I checked the trees to see which side the moss grew but as this is a rain forest and there is moss all around the trunk of pretty much every tree. Then to top it all Boo was no where, then it hit me Fucking hell I'm lost.
A deep seeded feeling rose in my belly and I had a moment of  panic but only a moment. Then I thought first things first find the dog. I called to Boo and sounething moved out in the swanp, a blur of biege then sprang up in the air and looked in as many directions as it could before gravity took over and it sank back below the long grasses of the wet land. It was Boo, we were reunited once more.
So no sun, no sea, the Ray Mears moss thing is no good, trees usually lean towards the south but in this forest they lean in every direction due to the power of the winter storms. OK I am pretty good at remembering my steps , I'll back track and see where that gets me. Carefully I retraced my steps, cursing the fact that my son's Christmas present to me was Walkie talkies, but even then had been sent to the wrong address and turned up at his home in the UK.
What I was seeing seemed familiar and I felt positive just doing something, I have a pretty good internal navigation system and now I had to totally rely on it to get me and Boo home safe. I followed my instincts for about an hour and finally light broke through the tree line ahead, trusting my senses I had a pretty good Idea where I was and headed confidently in that direction. When I arrived it was a completely different place to what I expected, in fact so different that freaked out even more as I now knew where I was.
To be where I was , was impossible to be without getting wet. I will explain in an example.
( Imagine you are on the south coast of Britain, you know France is twenty or so miles across the channel but you go for a walk, get lost for a bit and then you are in France.) I made my way back to the house and tried to explain to Tara what had happened. She just didn't get it and who's to blame her it sounds insane. I knew something weird had happened like walking through a worm hole, I looked a t Boo and she was still trembling from our experience