Three years ago, in May, when the wood rang with birdsong, I photographed an old ash tree growing at the side of Horner Water. It was a stump with two broken forks, but its moss-furred trunk was firm and thickly rooted, drawing the earth to it. New branches, the width of a child’s arm, sprouted from the bole and waved green fingers.
I sought it out again during the Christmas holidays, when the wood was greyed by midwinter and the only sound was the regular muffled bump of a boulder rocking deep in the tumbling stream.
