By Tim Porteus

ON A TYPICALLY Scottish summer day, rainy and quite humid, with the kids house crazy, we decided to venture out; but where to go on such a day? Where else but ‘a rain forest’, I decided.

“I’m pretty sure there are no rainforests in Scotland,” my 10-year-old daughter replied.

“Maybe not tropical, and maybe not big forests, but you’ll see,” I said.

So we set off. I’d decided we’d visit the wood at Bilsdean Burn, as it tumbles to the sea. It can be accessed via Dunglass Burn and the beach, but we decided on a more direct route as, given the weather, we didn’t want to spend too much time walking exposed by the coast.

It’s a small section of woodland, wedged between farmland and clinging onto the steep sides of the gully carved by the burn. My hope was that once we were under the canopy of the trees we would be sheltered from the worst of the continuous rain.

The trees embraced us as soon as we entered this small wood. My wee four-year-old boy Lewis led the way and I could see by the way he was pausing and looking around that he was feeling the atmosphere of this tiny but special place.

The trees dripped on us but we were generally sheltered and completely surrounded with green; yes, we were in a ‘rain forest’!

It’s what you feel as much as what you see. It’s an ability to connect and let nature embrace you. And the mood of the kids changed, they were feeling the effect.

Recent research has shown that spending at least two hours a week in nature can transform our wellbeing and health, both mental and physical. It even seems to have a positive impact on cognitive development. It needn’t be two hours in one go, but making sure we get our weekly dose of nature can have massive long-term benefits.

We paused to listen to the patter on the canopy high above us. It was humid and damp, but that just added to the experience.

The kids had been given a quest to find the waterfall. Lewis spotted it first.

To be honest, it was more a trickle than a fall, despite the heavy rain of that day. But there was no disappointment, as the setting was so magical.

We were in a place where people lived in times before history and, like they must have done, we imagined the stories which hung on the trees and rocks. We were in nature’s theatre and so we made stories of faeries and other magical creatures. The kids decided that for sure a brownie lived by the waterfall, and of course Lewis was on constant lookout for a dinosaur.

It wasn’t a long stay, perhaps an hour. But it gave a dreich day a special quality. It transformed all our moods, proving that the benefits of nature are not weather dependant! Nature’s magic is not diluted by rain, in fact it can be enhanced!