DERELICT SUNDAY

After a very good Church service online with a thought-provoking sermon, we decided to go out for a drive.   Knowing that the M4 was closed nearby, we went completely the other way, towards Lechlade.  Mr. HCB always likes to get off “the beaten track” so we turned towards the Barringtons and drove along some very narrow country roads, which were more like lanes than roads.  

In our Sunday outings recently, we haven’t found any dereliction, and we weren’t really looking for any today, but came across this little building, which was obviously no longer used, near Coln St. Aldwyns, so Mr. HCB was able to stop and let me take several photographs.  I walked right into the field because there was no gate, but stopped short of going into the building because it did look quite dangerous.  After a little fartnarkling in my Painteresque app, this was the result.

Further along the road and quite near Quenington, we came across a tree that caught our attention,  and which I have included as an extra.  Once again, Mr. HCB pulled over onto a grass verge so that I could go and take some photographs.  It is a very large horse chestnut tree, but what drew us to it was the fact that it had one very low branch and we both said it reminded us of the passage we had reading the book entitled “Wilding” by Isabella Tree and recommended by a Blip friend.

In the book, Ted Green - a good name for one associated with trees, said as he stood under a large “bifurcating structure” - meaning a large tree with two large branches or forks : “As it grows old, a tree sometimes lowers its branches towards the ground for stability, like an old man using a walking stick.  To the modern eye this self-buttressing tendency is considered a weakness and the walking stick - the lowering branch - is generally removed.  We have a fixed image of how a tree should look, like a child’s drawing with a straight trunk and a pom-pom on top.  We don’t want to see anything else.  We deny the tree its ability to grow old, to gain character, to be itself.  It’s like taking away my bus pass and giving me a facelift, so I always look fifty.”

Someone had obviously put a metal stake underneath the lowered branch to hold it up and we were so pleased to see this.  I also read that one of the reasons so many trees fall in storms is because branches have been removed instead of leaving them to balance themselves and that’s when structural damage is caused to trees.  I wonder how many trees had been “damaged” by removing branches before they fell during the last storms?  

“Ancient trees are precious.
     There is little else on earth that
          plays host to such a rich community of life
               within a single living organism.”
Sir David Attenborough

P.S.  We found out the reason the M4 was closed was because a 19 year old girl was killed after she fell off the motorway bridge - so very sad at any time, but especially at this time of year.