No let-up in yesterday's rain, but that was all right, since we badly needed rain.  Everything had become too dry, we've had a series of extraordinarily hot days.  Too hot to do much of anything, but requiring the avid gardener to ensure that vulnerable, newly-planted annuals and those placed in garden pots didn't dry out and expire.

Despite the rain, and perhaps in defiance of it, and given the fact that the newly-burgeoned canopy in the ravine does provide some protection against the elements, we set off, suitably garbed, to challenge the rain and have our usual daily ravine ramble, regardless.

It wouldn't be the first time, nor the last we would embark on a woodland walk in the face of rain.

The drenched landscape took on an emerald hue, as though we had been dropped into a perfectly green world, brilliant and bright, despite the enveloping dark gloom above with the rain continuing to pound down, but not particularly upon us.  Riley's little raincoat kept him nice and dry, so that was all to the good, as well.  The cooler temperatures that prevailed, albeit sultry, represented a refreshing change from a week of heat.

But the heat that had prostrated the mosquito population, now giving way to the moist conditions beloved of those blood-sucking pests had benefited them hugely.  The large areas of standing water inviting the mosquitoes to lay their eggs, and the squirming mass of larvae to mature quickly into swarms of exceedingly nasty predators that did their best to feast on what little exposed flesh they could find.

Fortunately for Riley, mosquitoes don't seem to enjoy the hormones he exudes as an odour that seems to repel them.  Selfish little brute, he refuses to share the formula with us.