The rain came down heavily this morning and the ground has had it’s best drenching in weeks. In Regent’s park the park is all very dry and brown but the tree’s are still green.
When I first started this blog I planned to photograph this tree every month and see how it changed but I haven’t done it since it showed it’s first bud back in April. Now it’s only a few weeks from autumn and leaf fall.
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In a fit of enthusiasm, about this time last year, I signed up for a 5km run in aid of Trees For Cities, a London based charity which plants trees in cities. Much to my amazement, I managed to finish and didn't even come last. They gave me a nice goody bag, in a jute shopper, including a t-shirt, bottled water (not sure about that) and some tree seeds. I planted them immediately, they hatched a week or two later, quickly grew to about 3 cm high and then did absolutely nothing until the last couple of weeks, when they've suddenly put on another centimetre or so.
I think they'll grow to about 30-40m, given the chance, so I may have to bonsai them. I've no idea how quickly they'll grow here, but the ones on a plantation in NZ that I have as part of a long-term pension scheme are supposed to be ready for harvest at 25 years. They can stay in the yoghurt pot for a little bit longer.
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London is a big, sprawling, crowded metropolis with a deceptive ability to provide green and almost wild spaces. A short ride on the number 168 bus takes me up to the South End, close to the Royal Free hospital in Hampstead. The Heath is so very different from Regents Park and the lovely but very orderly squares of Camden and Bloomsbury, with woodland areas that are left to grow almost as they will, dead trees providing habitats for small beasties and fungi, flowers growing wild. Its a place to be quiet, to walk and get lost, to pretend you're out of the city for a while.
After an hour, or a day, wandering across from South End, I arrive at Parliament Hill Fields where the 121 bus is waiting to take me back home again, after a stop for coffee at the Cafe Mozart.
And the squirrels were out too. This little fellow was leaping and playing in an old hollow tree.
]]>It’s still winter and, at least from a distance, the trees are still bare.
The first signs of spring are around, if you look closely. In a couple of weeks, everything will be starting to bud and bloom.
Harrington Square is still bare too, but it won’t be long now.
On the way to the park, I walk past Harrington Square, and at this time of the year, can see the wonderful Art Deco Greater London House through the bare branches of the trees. This photo was actually taken in January 2005, but the view is much the same now.
