The other day I came across a rather interesting blog post on sphagnum moss. I didn’t know there were 30 different kinds of sphagnum in the UK, nor that the plant had no roots, and just sort of floated on the top of the bog. As it happens, I should have paid a closer attention to that one!

Out for a walk with Linda today on a big open moor, I was stepping over a channel in a peat hag between two grassy patches. Not particularly wide, just enough not to be able to just step over, and rather then doing a little hop to get me there — not feeling too energetic after five hours of the same, sun beating down on me, 17C and all that — I just stepped on some innocuous looking patch of sphagnum at the very far edge of the channel …

Well, it must have been one of those varieties that prefers to float on water alone, because next I know I am in up to my knee, face down on the other side, grasping for some grass to pull myself out. All in all, I was lucky it was at the edge, because my foot didn’t hit the bottom, so who knows how deep that hole really was! The thought that I might have given my new binoculars dunking gives me the shivers.