Lament for a cherry tree

It’s hard to believe that it’s now more than twelve years since DH and I embarked on a house-hunting trip to Normandy one chilly and damp week in February.  We’d done a fair bit of research on the internet and had made appointments with a number of French estate agents to view likely-looking (i.e. cheap) properties.

After my Sunday-morning services we packed the very small campervan and took the overnight ferry from Portsmouth to Ouistreham, which decanted us, after an almost sleepless night, neatly onto the Caen péripherique or ring-road in the middle of the morning rush-hour! DH turned pale, gripped the steering-wheel with white-knuckled hands and begged me to find the first suitable turn-off.

During the next couple of days we criss-crossed southern Manche from one appointment to the next, trying to find polite ways of telling one agent after another that what had looked possible on the web was impossible in reality. Finally, having told yet another agent that the house we’d booked to see wouldn’t do, we asked him if he had anything else in our price-range.

He produced two photos of houses for which he had not yet had time to compile details and took us off to see them. One was a complete non-starter, being both miniscule and in the middle of a remote field without an access road, but the other had distinct possibilities. To cut a long story short, after much discussion over supper in the van, we went back next day to see the agent and agreed to buy it.

We’d noticed of course that there were several trees scattered around the nearly half-acre of land on which the house stood, but in their February leaflessness they were not easy to identify. When we went back in late August to complete the purchase, it was a different matter. The apple trees and espaliered pear were full of ripening fruit,  but we still couldn’t work out what the other, larger trees might be.

Bare bones, but no identity

It was the carpenter, who came to look at the house and discuss the necessary renovation work, who broke the news to us that we had three very large cherry trees in our newly-acquired garden. I still remember the thrill his words gave me at the thought that we would one day be able to pick our own cherries instead of having to buy them in small and very expensive quantities.

Because I was still working at that time, our visits over the next few years were short and infrequent and somehow never managed to coincide with the cherry season. It wasn’t until after I retired in the spring of 2007 that we were able to make our first long summer visit and discover that we had three different varieties of cherry tree, the largest and most impressive of which was a yellow Coeur de Pigeon which stood in the middle of the front garden and in the shade of which we had parked the van in the years when the house was still being made habitable.

In subsequent years we have eaten its large and juicy cherries, revelled in its generous shade in hot weather and admired its statuesque beauty, as it dwarfed not only the house but also every other tree in the garden, except for the leggy poplars in the hedge.

Huge and luscious cherries - far more than we could ever eat.

In a green shade...

Then, two summers ago, disaster struck. One afternoon, while picking cherries, I looked up to where the three very large main boughs, each as big as the trunk of a medium-sized tree, spread out from the enormous main trunk, and spotted a tiny sapling growing out of the hollow between the boughs. On investigation it became apparent that a cherry stone had become lodged in a crack between the boughs and had germinated and grown.

We removed the sapling and saw that the crack wasn’t very big and didn’t seem to be a problem. Nevertheless DH measured it just in case and we agreed we’d keep an eye on it in subsequent years. Last summer we measured the crack again and saw to our horror that it was definitely bigger. Given the height and weight of those three main boughs and the mass of smaller branches each carried, the thought of what might happen if one of them split away from the main trunk in a gale was very worrying.

So small, yet so deadly.

Luckily for us, our nearest French neighbour up the hill from us is a landscape gardener and tree surgeon and we asked him to come and give us his opinion. However, before he could do so, we had to return home early because of the death of my friend, and we agreed that he would come and inspect the tree as soon as he could after our departure.

This he did and in fact was so concerned that he called in a friend who specialises in fruit trees for some expert advice. The consensus was that the cherry tree was by then so top-heavy that it was only a matter of time before one or more of the boughs would split away and come crashing down. Unfortunately full-grown cherry trees don’t respond well to pruning or pollarding and the only sensible solution was to fell it, along with the three leggy poplar trees which were badly interfering with phone and power lines.

Poplar with mistletoe

All this means that when we arrive next week for our usual summer visit, the garden will look very different and I must confess I’m not looking forward to the prospect. I have no strong feelings about the loss of the poplar trees, which had a bad habit of dropping twigs and even branches in the slightest wind and were always full of mistletoe which DH had to try to remove.

However the thought that the magnificent cherry tree, which has for so long dominated the front of the house and given us so much pleasure, will no longer be there to greet us, really saddens me. Trees have character too and our Coeur de Pigeon was strong, friendly and generous. I will miss it very much.

We ate in its shade...

.. and read in it.

It gave welcome shade to the house...

... and to the garden.  It won't be quite the same without it.

The fog is finally clearing

I’m speaking mentally, you understand, not meteorologically. The almost endless cycle of wind and rain which has been battering the British Isles for the past two months hasn’t allowed much fog to form, though today’s welcome lull between two storms has seen the hills look misty for once.

The mental fog after my general anaesthetic has been a different matter. I don’t ever remember taking so long to shed the effects of an anaesthetic and I’m still finding it hard to concentrate for any length of time. I seem to have slipped into a kind of suspended animation, so that time drifts by almost without my noticing it. Only now am I starting to feel a bit more awake and ready to tackle things, as long as they don’t involve heavy lifting.

The past two weeks have been been filled with a random mixture of blog and book-reading, knitting and TV-watching - hardly the stuff of a riveting blog-post. The weather has been almost unrelievedly terrible, with the countryside too sodden and wind-blown to tempt me out for a walk. The real sign of hope is the noticeably lengthening days, which reminds me that, despite all signs to the contrary, winter is passing and spring can’t be too far away.

Until then, perhaps what I need is a mischievous cat to keep me on my toes and stop me nodding off. All that mending would certainly help the time pass productively.

A walk in the park

I’m sitting at my desk this grey, wet Sunday afternoon, with the leaves from the ash trees whirling past my study window as the rising gale tears them from the branches. The radio and TV news is full of dire predictions of the worst storm in years for the southern half of the UK, so I've taken refuge in remembering the very pleasant weekend away DH and I enjoyed a couple of weeks ago.

We had gathered for the weekend with DH’s two younger brothers and their wives at the home of my dear mother-in-law in the Cotswolds and the weather wasn't promising. It had rained almost non-stop the previous day, so when the sun broke through the clouds on the Saturday afternoon we took advantage of the respite to go for a walk in a local beauty spot, Batsford Arboretum. 

The house is privately-owned and not open to the public, but the fifty acres of beautifully-landscaped parkland which surround it contain a wonderful collection of specimen trees, always an attraction for my tree-loving (though not, so far as I know, tree-hugging) husband. The landscaping we still see dates back to the 1860s and predates the rebuilding of the house in the 1890s, but both were the work of members of the Mitford family, who owned the estate for several decades. During World War One it was the home of the famous (to some perhaps infamous) Mitford sisters until it was sold in 1919.

A parkland vista

And in the far distance deer may safely graze

Though our visit was in early October there was sadly little of the glorious autumn colour we had been hoping for. The very cold late spring seems to have pushed the subsequent seasons back by several weeks and most things were still very green as we strolled happily among the trees and admired the views. I can only hope that the forecast storm won’t wreak havoc among the magnificent old giants that stand with such dignity in their beautiful setting, having survived the Great Storm of 1987, when so many millions of their fellows were not so fortunate.

Just in case here are some more images from our lovely afternoon walk in quintessentially English landscaped countryside.

Batsford House in its setting

A few glimpses of colour

Living sculpture

A magnificent beech 

Such grandeur

Trio in a green study

The world in black and white….

….with just a hint of green and brown. We had our first snow of the winter overnight on Monday and the drab and sodden landscape in my previous post has been transformed.  The low temperatures mean that this covering is still with us and is being gently augmented by the light snow which has been falling all day in a desultory fashion.

However the forecaster are warning that light snow will change to heavy snow overnight, so DH and I are hunkering down to wait out whatever Nature decides to throw at us. Oh, the joy of being retired and able to stay safely at home when the roads are bad and travelling is difficult. If you aren't lucky enough to be able to do this, take care and stay safe.

From the shelter and (comparative) warmth of the house, these were the views this morning on all four sides of our Welsh home. 

The view to the north (or rather north-west)....

....and to the south

Shelter from the Wild Wood to the east.....

and our beloved ash tree view to the west

A breath of fresh air

A sudden rush of busyness this week has meant blogging has had to take a back seat for a bit. The busyness was due partly to the inevitable backlog of chores after our lovely Christmas break and partly to the sudden need to think about and research the purchase of a new car after our trusty, almost sixteen-year-old workhorse comprehensively failed its MOT test (UK annual roadworthiness check) last week. Add to this the fact that our local vicar is off sick and I’m taking her services on Sunday, and life has become unusually hectic at the moment.

So when the rain finally eased off earlier in the week, it was good to get out for a couple of pleasant, if somewhat soggy walks on succeeding afternoons, and I even remembered to take my ageing camera with me. I make no apologies for the light levels, as it had been quite extraordinarily overcast and murky for days. Still, this is Wales and cloud features quite prominently in our weather at almost any time of the year. Luckily I love cloud as well as sunshine, and the big skies that are a feature of any view from up here are a source of constant satisfaction.

The old homestead

Enough to ruin any car's suspension?

Big sky, big view......

As I squelched along the edge of the field below the house, I became fascinated by the gnarled and twisted shapes of the hedgerow bushes that border the field. The hedge is old and neglected, but at some point in its life it had been properly laid, and its mixture of horizontal and vertical branches, shaped by wind and weather in this exposed spot,  caught and held my interest as I walked. I hope my pictures do it justice…..

The necessity of trees

As many of you probably know by now, our favourite view from our house in Wales is dominated by the magnificent ash tree outside the bathroom window. The possibility that it and its companions may one day fall victim to ash die-back fills me with a mixture of sadness and dread. Yet, even if no longer carpeted with trees as in the past, Mid-Wales still has a wonderful variety of them, especially in the valley of the River Severn, where ancient and gnarled reminders of the mighty Montgomeryshire oaks once used to build ships for the British navy, still stand proudly in hedgerow and field.

In Normandy the garden in front of our house is overshadowed by three huge cherry trees, but in stark contrast to the lush fecundity of more favoured areas, here in the far north-west Highlands of Scotland, trees of any size are a rarity and to be treasured. Most are stunted and bent by the harshness of the climate and the poverty of the soil, but in sheltered places some do manage to flourish.

One of those places is our front garden, where, protected from the worst of the weather by hills on three sides, we have not only a few small fruit trees and ornamental bushes but also a graceful silver birch. Though nowhere near the size of its cousins further south, its beauty draws the eye in all seasons and at all times of the day, especially in the evening as the sun sets behind the fretwork tracery of its branches.

To me trees are one of the essentials of nature and a world without trees a nightmare beyond imagining. Trees are the anchor of the landscape, linking past, present and future and I love them in all their wondrous variety of shape and type. Here is the scene I contemplated yesterday, as the last of the sunset afterglow drained from the sky and night fell over hill, tree and water. 

By day and by night

Who needs words?

The view from our bathroom window in Wales

Beauty right under my nose

Today the grandsons went home after a really enjoyable visit (for us, and hopefully for them) and I’m now recovering with a nice pot of tea and a gentle browse through the photos we’ve taken this week. After the rain-sodden Bank Holiday weekend the weather improved rapidly and we were able to go out to show them the Mid-Wales countryside, so different from their home area in the flat plain of the southern Vale of York.

On Thursday afternoon, while I was otherwise engaged, DH took them to visit the wind-farm on the hills across the valley from us. Mid-Wales is home to an increasing number of wind-farms, and the rate of growth is proving to be more than a little controversial. For what it’s worth, DH and I don’t have a problem with this, but I realise it isn’t a view shared by everyone.

This particular wind-farm is one of the longest-established in the area, and when it was opened in 1993, it was the largest in Europe. By today’s standards, however, its output is modest and it is due to be rebuilt, but the present  turbines still managed to awe our two talkative grandsons into silence.

On  Saturday, after we had been joined by DD and her husband, we went to visit one of my favourite local beauty-spots, in the heart of the Hafren Forest.  The forest takes its name from Afon Hafren (River Severn) which rises less than a mile outside its western boundary, high on the slopes of Pumlumon, the highest mountain in Mid-Wales.

After our picnic lunch we went for a wonderful walk alongside the infant Severn, which at this point on its journey to the sea tumbles over a series of small, rocky waterfalls, known as the Cascades.

Years ago the Forestry Commission installed a board-walk along the boggy river-bank, to enable even those with limited mobility to enjoy this extraordinarily beautiful spot, as well as waymarking a series of walks through the forest to satisfy all levels of energy and fitness.

DH and I contented ourselves with a modest stroll, and while DD and her family went off for something a little more strenuous, we walked back to the boardwalk to sit by the river and contemplate the beauty to be found so very close to home.

Once I've tidied up after the visit and gathered my thoughts, I will share more of my trip to Assisi with you, but until then there is something eternally restful and constant about the ever-changing flow of a river.