A tree for all seasons

Living as we do, high in the hills of Mid-Wales and with no near neighbours, frosted glass in our bathroom window is, thankfully, unnecessary.  I say thankfully because the view from the bathroom window is one of the best in the house and it would be such a shame to waste it. Whatever the time of year or the weather, it does the soul good to stand there every morning, cleaning your teeth and gazing at the majestic ash tree just below the house and at the fields and hills beyond.

The tree was a fair size when we first moved here and the intervening thirty-eight years have seen it grow into a very big tree indeed. It isn’t the only ash tree around, or even the biggest, but its distinctive shape and dominant position mean that it will always be the ash tree to us.

Luckily its main branches are widely spaced, so that it is only in the height of summer, when the its leaves are fully out, that the view is largely blocked. At other times of year we can at least glimpse the hills and fields through its gracefully drooping twigs and when these are completely leafless, as now, the view beyond is lovely.

In spring we wait eagerly to see when it will start to break into leaf, always remembering the old weather saying:

“If the oak before the ash,

Then we'll only have a splash.

If the ash before the oak,
Then we'll surely have a soak!

The problem has always been that by the time summer finally arrives, none of us can actually remember which came into leaf first. Sadly it seems that global warming may be altering the pattern to the advantage of the oak, but we still like to think our old ash tree can predict our summer weather.

In autumn our ash tree is generous. It doesn’t just drop its leaves to nourish the earth, but many of its twigs as well. My mother, a keen and talented gardener, always called the ash a messy tree, far too ready to shed its twigs and even branches when the autumn gales roar in from the south-west. I’ve lost count of the hours I’ve spent sweeping up its leaves and other debris, that carpet the yard or pile up against the house wall after a gale has blown itself out.

In many ways it is winter that best highlights the strength and grace of our ash tree, especially the hard winters we’ve been having recently. The sight of such a large tree after a heavy snowfall, with even the tiniest twig bearing its ethereal burden of snow, is magical, while its sturdy trunk and branches, outlined by the driven snow, have an abstract beauty all their own.

No wonder I waste so much time cleaning my teeth and brushing my hair every morning. With all that subtle and constantly-changing beauty to distract you, wouldn’t you?