Month: July 2025
-
Days of gentle ripening
It is mid-July and it has rained for the first time in several weeks. Gentle warm rain, interspersed with strong sunshine. These are the days of gentle ripening, to complete the work that started in in the blossom season of the early spring. The orchard in Trendlewood Park has a collection of ripening fruit trees…
-
I bear their homes, too
For Jules Acton, author of Oaklore. The old oak tree said to the traveller passing by: “You know me, you see me everyday. I am that oak tree that has stood here longer than any of can you remember.” “I am on the 1840 Ordnance Survey map and I was a sturdy tree, even back…
-
A home for the summer
By the high summer of July, the new fresh leaves of the horse chestnut are losing their lustre. The proud spread of leaves are now crumpled and marked—creased with dry, papery wounds edged in rust. At first glance, it looks like disease or drought. But the truth is stranger, and smaller. These are the workings…
