Third Time Lucky?

It's taken a year—I didn't expect it to be that long when I wrote the post below, just before Christmas last year—but Wendy's new tree is finally planted by her bench. A lot of the delay was waiting for the lab report on the last tree. When we finally got this, there was no obvious reason for the tree's death, certainly no identifiable oak pathogens. But, while that meant it should be safe to replant on the same spot, it still seemed prudent to try a different species.

So, yesterday (by chance our wedding anniversary) most of the family joined me and with David Penney's help we planted a small-leaved lime, tilia henryana. It's a sturdy specimen with lots of healthy-looking buds, and David assures me that it will have beautiful autumn foliage and in time will grow into a large tree. Big enough to fulfil Wendy's wish that people should be able to sit on her bench beneath her tree.

Later, as it grew dark, we returned to the site and attempted to launch two sky lanterns. But it was too windy to get them lit, so we had to abandon that plan. But we did manage to set off a couple of rockets left over from bonfire night. Wendy would have liked that; she always loved pretty fireworks. She might not have approved quite so much of the way the rockets frightened the dogs, who were tied to her bench, and began barking and howling as the rockets flared. She might also have been a bit concerned that the second rocket startled a flock of geese, that chose exactly the wrong moment to fly across from the woods behind. We saw them too late to abort the launch but as far as I could tell it didn't hit any, and they just honked a bit and landed safely on the twilit water.  Just a bit nearer to Normanton than they had originally planned...

This seems an appropriate time to launch a revised 'edition' of my poetry collection Golden Days, Dark Nights. All the original poems and songs are there, with a bit of reformatting. New material includes a full band version of the song Miss You, recorded with Jewellers Eye last March. Health Warning: the recording features Wendy's voice, taken from her last voicemail message to me shortly before she went into hospital for the last time. Perhaps best not to listen when you are feeling fragile. There are also several new poems, one a memory of Wendy called Your Special Talent For Sleeping. The other new poems are various reflections on life and love since her death. I hope you like them – click here for the contents page. Or follow the link at the top of the list on the right.