Rivers are the most wonderful natural waterways. Here in the UK they have cleaned them up a great deal over the past generation and much of the damage done to them from pollution has been reversed, though there is still a lot to do.
The freshness and sound of running water is one of the most soothing to the human being. The glimpses of colourful birds, the sweetness of watching invertebrates, touching mosses and picking over the smoothed pebbles or clambering over a fallen tree whose branches are catching at oddments as they float on the water. It is strange that coldness should inspire such feelings of warmth.
But then there are degrees of coldness in nature as well as in human beings. And as rivers run slow, fast, bubble and meander so human beings can accept some coldness as delightful, short bursts of snow, swift passing of ice; the kind of coldness that does not become a chill. Even bathing in a river on a summer’s day and shivering slightly until one is dry is a pleasure because it is a marked difference. A coolness to the body.
Rivers have all the passions but heat , for those rivers you need to go to the tropics where the rainfall is warm and an ice cream is all the coldness anyone wants.