Copper beech logs

Last night, as I lay in bed, all I could see in my mind’s eye were hundreds of pairs of highly polished boots marching, at precisely 75 beats per minute, in perfect harmony, in the Queen’s funeral procession. I could hear the crunching sound of leather on the tarmac, the horses’ hooves clopping and the metallic clinking of the soldiers’ swords. Eventually, it became so hypnotic that I drifted off to sleep, which was just as well because the day had left me emotionally drained. 

I have never felt so proud of our monarchy and our country as I did yesterday and I was often in tears. I found it almost unbearably sad to see the crown, orb and sceptre removed from the Queen’s coffin in St. George’s Chapel and then see an anguished King Charles place the Queen’s Company camp colour on the coffin, and watch the Lord Chamberlain break his wand of office and lay it beside the small flag. I just hope that this coming week of Royal mourning will give King Charles and all his family some time and space to do their personal grieving well out of the public eye.

As for me, today was spent in a rather mundane fashion, having more tree work done. The ash tree beside our mighty oak was thinned down – and more branches added to my wren pile! – and then a rather spindly copper beech tree in our front garden was felled. Sadly, it has been dying for some time and had to be cut down to prevent dead branches dropping and hurting a passer by. The trunk was sawn into logs, which have been temporarily stored in our garage. Fortunately our gardener owns a log splitter, so he will do that job for us and they will be a useful addition to our log store for this winter.