Once Upon a Time
there was a very beautiful forest, where people fortunate
enough to live nearby, brought their children and dogs of all shapes and
sizes, to enjoy the treasures that the forest had to offer.
It was a truly a
magic forest, as those who had created this forest would hide special gifts,
to be found by the people who walked there, and who took the time to notice
such things.
On a winter day the
hidden gift may be the whispy, mysterious fog, or the rain running in shiny
torrents down the bark of the pine trees. Spring and summer may reveal the
yellow dandelions, with their bright, yellow faces or their little delicate
time clocks which could be blown away on a puff of breath to make quite
sure that their seeds would spread, and more dandelions could grow and be
enjoyed by those who had not yet discovered this magic place.
But, with the passing
of autumn, the whispering of the wind in the trees gently told those who
had already witnessed the passing of the seasons in this glade, that it
was almost time for the most beautiful gift of all to be offered by the
keeper of the forest........
It was the time of the toadstool.......
and those who looked carefully among the
pine needles might see
the first tiny toadstool shyly emerging through the carpet of pine needles.
by Cecilia 