When life feels complicated ...

Three fields from my house is a fallen oak. This vast exposed root it all that's left of its hundreds of years of bending in storms, drinking up rain, reaching up to spring sun, drying out in mid-summer heat, sending out thousands of leaves every spring, letting go every autumn, feeling the old leaves rejoining it slowly through the soil, dropping the branch that lightning struck, resisting the beetles and the woodpecker that followed them, reaching out to its companion - an oak its equal in size just along the field path, sharing knowledge and maybe joy, knowing this is the year to make acorns and smother the ground in them, feeling a new tree emerge and start to talk through its roots, hearing the buzz of thousands of insects, the craak of the crows in its top, and finally, very slowly, coming to an end.

This is the oak I used to pass, and it's still glorious in its complexity, its strength and its uniqueness.

One day I want to be an oak.

PS The Hidden Life of Trees, by Peter Wohlleben changed my understanding of oaks and all other trees for ever.

PPS Van Gogh definitely looked long and hard at a dead oak root.

Cherry blossom

I planted this cherry tree a few years ago to brighten up the view from my office window. Despite being in not very lovely soil, and in the path of the north wind, it's grown a treat and this week it has sprung again into blossom - one day there are mere hints of buds, the next it's smothered in ridiculously overdone pink froth. The blossom will only last a week or two - or until a strong wind blows - but while it's here I love it. (And shan't chop it down despite the advice of a sensible but boring gardener who says it's going to get too big, and is beautiful for such  a short time it doesn't earn its keep - who said beauty has to be long-lasting?)

One of the greatest joys is the way that passers-by respond to the tree. A father picked up his small toddler and put his face right up to the blossom so he could feel it - the toddler was overjoyed and crowed so loudly that I looked up from my desk to see who was outside. Later a family came past on its way to see the steam trains - the dad was fixated on the trains and marched ahead, but the children stopped short and made him come back to admire the tree. As I said - who says beauty has to earn its keep?