Monday lunchtime. Arranged to meet Carol at the Enfants Noyés in Boitsfort to walk the dog. Drove round by the Etangs d'Ixelles in a tremendous thunderstorm. Great cracking forks of lightning rent the darkened sky. As I parked in the forest it was still bucketing down. However, when Carol drove up a few minutes later the sky was beginning to clear and patches of blue appeared as we set out on our walk. It was then that we were vouchsafed the most miraculous vision of natural beauty. As we walked down towards the ponds, the combination of the emerging sun and the backdrop of the black rain-clouds revealed myriad tiny pearls of rainwater attached to every tiny twig and branch as though each tree had decided wantonly to bedeck itself in its most fabulous jewels. The whole shimmering extravagance was infused with the most delicate flush of green from the incipient leaf-growth. The translucent light invested the trunks of the trees with a new intensity as though one had never seen trees before, as though one only now became truly aware of the extraordinary depth of their, and our, existence in three dimensions. The fantastic richness and subtlety of the colouring of trees were revealed as though for the very first time; the browns, greens, greys, green-greys, yellow-brown-greens - each nuance perfect in its suchness. Although observers, we yet participated in the scene with a strangely heightened awareness of our own existence. It is at such times that we are reminded that to be alive is something utterly extraordinary and that we spend too much of our precious time short-changing ourselves with the dull habit of negative thinking.