Happy New Year

2009 already!





My big event last year was the big 50!





My main birthday gift was a camera and my hope is to use it to photograph all aspects of trees.

This is a picture of fallen leaves from a small leaved lime wood taken in Worcestershire in November 2008 while on a "tree hunt".

Tree hunts are fun, all you need is details of the trees you want to find, a map and a camera.
Hopefully resulting in a greater knowlege of the countryside and the trees growing in it and a collection of beautiful and fascinating photographs.

From a tiny acorn......

........a mighty oak tree can grow!

When Simon has time that is! After a lovely but busy Christmas and new year helping with the guest house and spending some time with family and friends, time was taken up with gearing up for the new year. This has meant tidying my study/office leading on to giving my rather humble filing system a total overhaul leading on to sorting out all last years accounts, and then having to prepare a risk assessment for some of my work I hope to do this year credit crunch permitting!

The next possible blogging time was then taken up by a trip to a plant nursery in West Cornwall to spend a generous gift from my godmother Clare. We opted to spend the money on some outdoor ferns, three phormium plants, a gunnera and a tamarisk shrub. This lead on to the next possible blogging time being taken up by planting!

I also have to admit to watching various films on Television and reading.

I am currently reading a wonderful book called "Wildwood, a Journey through Trees" by Roger Deakin. My darling Vanessa gave it to me a while ago and I had no idea the extradorninary affect it would have on me. Roger, sadly now passed on, was a remarkable man with a true respect and love of simple natural things such as trees and wood. His admiration and respect for the one hundred and one plus ways trees affect our lives is boundless in a way I find truely humbling. I have been moved nearly to tears several times by his simple reflections on a subject he so plainly cherishes. He was a founder member of Friends of the Earth and what a true friend to the earth he was, may his passions live on and inspire many other souls to follow his ways in exploring and admiring so many aspects of those truly awsome life forms known as trees!

So here we are in the middle of January! The birds are singing now looking forward to the new season while the hard frost of recent weeks has given way to wind and rain! Simon has already been soaked in his work and no doubt will be again....

The new year feels good though, with lots of positive possibilities about to emerge as realities!

What about that tree hunt?

A happy new year to all!