A Talking Tree

If you know me you’ll know of my fondness for trees, and even knowing they have turned on me from time to time, I’m unlikely to have anything negative to say about them. This week being National Tree Week then, is a time for me to reflect on the wonder of trees, to celebrate and be thankful for them, and if conditions permit: a time to plant one too. It would be remiss of me therefore not to put pen to paper and fingers to keys in order to show my respect for our woody friends. If you’re here though for the usual ‘love and plant trees’ kind of message, you might just be barking up the wrong tree.

Today I’m not so much going to write about trees, but write as one, and yes you did read that correctly: I’ll be morphing into an actual tree, to present an alternative tree’s-eye view. Should you choose to read on therefore, you’ll find it’s not so much me talking about trees, but talking as one, for a change. Go with it for a while, I dare you!

Now, to a point, I’d consider myself tree-like anyway, my robust trunk having grown incrementally over the years. When puzzled, my furrowed forehead isn’t too far removed from a tree’s fissured bark, and at times I can get a little creaky. Thankfully,

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At One with the Wall

A personal response to the felled tree at Sycamore Gap.

There are so many trees I have yet to converse with, but I do count myself fortunate to have encountered the Sycamore Gap tree a couple of times; a tree that’s mysteriously and defiantly prospored beside the mighty Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland. The fact that this tree even established itself, let alone lived this long time and in such exquisite form, is nothing short of a miracle.

I remember my first glimpse from the road of the tree nestled in its gap, and eventually on foot when I paused on the bank above, not wanting to rush my arrival but absorb the tree from on high. I paused awkwardly, but repeatedly all the way down the steps to the bottom of the gap, wanting to catch a glimpse into the tree’s crown without wishing to hold up the steady stream of walkers.

Once at the bottom of the gap I walked away from the tree to find my space, a place to wait and observe; rushing up to the tree didn’t feel right. At a distance and from a rocky seat, I could properly look on whilst trying to understand what made this tree, a simple sycamore, so special.

I’ve met so many sycamores or ‘Great Maples’ in my time, many having proudly stood in prominent places with their flaky trunks and large often

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