Just a tree

There was an extraordinary glow and sharpness in the air this afternoon. This was the scene just a couple of hundred yards from where we had parked our car in Pirbright village, Surrey. You walk across the football pitch, through a gate and a screen of trees and in to this wasteland that looks like something out of the African bush.

Except the marshy ground was frozen iron hard and the wind chill was straight off the Russian Steppes. Looking at it now, the colour seems unnatural but there really was this richness and clarity in the light. So it's just a tatty old tree, and only a stone's throw from cars and roads, but on this day, in this light I thought it stood proud.