Storm Damage 3

Sinister, shot against the sun, like a fairy story forest. I have decided I need to do some quite different drawing, and photographs of tangled branches might be part of the imagery. I need to do some looking. I was gong to self-publish “Musical Bears” this year but have decided it doesn’t feel the right time. I shall continue to work on the illustrations, whilst at the same time going off on a different tack.

Storm Damage 2

I shall visit this tree later in the year, to see if it has survived the ravages of the extreme weather we have had this late winter, in our usually temperate country.

Storm Damaged Trees

The Hirsel, a large estate that is part of Coldstream, lost 1000 trees in the storms this year. There was a notice up by the entrance to one of my usual walks saying Danger, Footpath Closed, but it was a beautiful calm spring day, and the high winds passed through some weeks back, several of them … so I bypassed the notice and took myself and my camera down the path by River Leet. There are fallen trees everywhere, but the saddest sight to me is the trees that have their tops torn off. The place is in one way like a Paul Nash painting of the battlefields of WW1; but in another way it is strange to see robins and blackbirds hopping about within the tangle of branches, and daffodils everywhere, and to hear the noise of children in the park across the other side of the water. The faintly sinister sound of chainsaws has been accompanying us for weeks. Trees are still leaning against other trees, and others have fallen across the Leet. Such chaos everywhere. Blue skies.