Saturday 29 November 2008

Old trees

Milton Keynes again, to hear an illustrated talk about old trees and apple orchards. Old trees are lovely, are they not? There they are, on the skyline, distant and ravaged by wind and time. But there's an old woven path to them that once was a drover's way, or the short-cut home by the hedgerow. And, if you take it, you can reach them, touch them, hug their old bones, stroke their crackled leaves, and thank them just for being hundreds of years old. They have survived all the things I could not withstand, like bomb blasts, thunderstorms and gales, and people digging up my favourite fields.

And the message is, look around you and find your old trees, go and say hello and shake their ancient branches.

Before the developers come.

2 comments:

mamacrow said...

i'm increasingly thinking of moving to milton keynes. there just mseems to be so many awesome talks/places to visit

sharon said...

You would so love the Treetop Walk in the Valley of the Giants a couple of hour's drive south of us. They are hundreds of years old and so enormous that it's humbling to be there. The highest point of the walkway is 40 metres and still the trees are taller! Simply stunning.