Mothering Sunday during the Covid19 Crisis
As I write this, the country is in a state of deepening lock-down, town centres are empty of people and most places are simply shut. Angela and I have gone into group self-isolation with Helena, and there are no delivery slots for weeks to come on the Tesco and Waitrose websites. Around the world, businesses and borders are shutting down and governments are resorting to extraordinary measures to support for their populations and keep businesses afloat.
Wendy would, of course, have risen to the demands of the occasion like we are all having to do. She would have worried deeply about her children, grandchildren and friends, and she would have looked for opportunities to help others. Though, if she had lived she would now be 76. So she too would have been forced into self-isolation. Like us, she would have said goodbye to grandkids and great-grandkids for the duration, and fallen back on phone calls, skype and facetime.
But that's not what I meant to write about in this post. We'll get back to normal some time in the future, those of us who don't succumb to the virus through bad luck or bad judgment. And in the meantime some aspects of normal life still go on. So... yesterday I planted a tree. A commemorative tree for Wendy.
It's an oak that Nicole Arkless gave me as a tiny seedling a year or so after Wendy died. Her older son had picked up the acorn on a woodland walk around the time of Wendy's last illness, and it had germinated. So Nic gave it to me as a memento. I planted it in a bigger pot and kept it in the garden while I decided what to do with it. Should I make it a bonsai? Or plant it out in the wild? Twelve years or so passed, and still no decision, but as the oak got bigger each year I had to pot it on a couple of times. This winter I decided to plant it out in the wild somewhere, but no obvious place came to mind. I had a vague plan: guerilla gardening of a sort, maybe in the Woodland Trust land on the hill near our house. I thought about adding a little marker plaque, as it would become Wendy's 4th memorial tree in all (the first two oaks died, but the 3rd, a Chinese small-leaved lime, now maybe 13 years old and 8 years in place, is healthy and budding strongly).
Then Angela had a better idea: ask Steven, who volunteers for the Wildlife Trust in a local woodland, if he could suggest a place. Which in due course he did. So yesterday we met and drove to the site - in separate cars, due to social distancing. There we met one of the owners, a lady called Min, who had suggested the spot. Others arrived: another conservation volunteer, Min's sister (Susan?) and her son, daughter in law and their baby in a backpack. We all maintained a careful 2 metre distance while I started to dig in the sodden clay, and everyone else teased me about how pleasant it was to watch the heavy work. It was heavy, not helped by some stout ash roots that I had to cut with my spade, wishing I had brought an axe. By then, I was on my own, digging in the warm sun and listening to the first chiffchaff of the summer singing nearby.
I'm sure Wendy would approve of the location of this, her latest memorial tree. It's at 52°38'26.7"N 0°47'00.9"W, in a wood just outside Braunston-in-Rutland, at the junction of two ancient green lanes. She'd have liked it being a crossroads, too.
One lane was once a main thoroughfare from Launde to Braunston, though now it is a little used bridleway through private woodland. Min had been looking for an oak, because the crossroads already had oak saplings on two facing corners, and she thought it would be a nice idea to plant two more at the other corners. At present the green lanes are chiefly flanked by ash trees, but ash die-back has got into the plantation and many of these are dead or diseased. Wendy's tree marks the third corner, with one still vacant. In a little while, there will be a marker post with an inscription, so you'll be able to find it if you go by. There is no bench, so if you want to sit in its shade you'll just have to sprawl on the grass around its trunk. But for that you'll also have to wait a few years too. Come by in about 30 years, and you might be able to do that. Wait a century to be really sure.
I didn't really think about it being Mothering Sunday until after I had the tree planted. But that seemed rather appropriate, too. Wendy was a lot of things in her life, but I think Mum was probably central to them all.
Wendy would, of course, have risen to the demands of the occasion like we are all having to do. She would have worried deeply about her children, grandchildren and friends, and she would have looked for opportunities to help others. Though, if she had lived she would now be 76. So she too would have been forced into self-isolation. Like us, she would have said goodbye to grandkids and great-grandkids for the duration, and fallen back on phone calls, skype and facetime.
But that's not what I meant to write about in this post. We'll get back to normal some time in the future, those of us who don't succumb to the virus through bad luck or bad judgment. And in the meantime some aspects of normal life still go on. So... yesterday I planted a tree. A commemorative tree for Wendy.
It's an oak that Nicole Arkless gave me as a tiny seedling a year or so after Wendy died. Her older son had picked up the acorn on a woodland walk around the time of Wendy's last illness, and it had germinated. So Nic gave it to me as a memento. I planted it in a bigger pot and kept it in the garden while I decided what to do with it. Should I make it a bonsai? Or plant it out in the wild? Twelve years or so passed, and still no decision, but as the oak got bigger each year I had to pot it on a couple of times. This winter I decided to plant it out in the wild somewhere, but no obvious place came to mind. I had a vague plan: guerilla gardening of a sort, maybe in the Woodland Trust land on the hill near our house. I thought about adding a little marker plaque, as it would become Wendy's 4th memorial tree in all (the first two oaks died, but the 3rd, a Chinese small-leaved lime, now maybe 13 years old and 8 years in place, is healthy and budding strongly).
Then Angela had a better idea: ask Steven, who volunteers for the Wildlife Trust in a local woodland, if he could suggest a place. Which in due course he did. So yesterday we met and drove to the site - in separate cars, due to social distancing. There we met one of the owners, a lady called Min, who had suggested the spot. Others arrived: another conservation volunteer, Min's sister (Susan?) and her son, daughter in law and their baby in a backpack. We all maintained a careful 2 metre distance while I started to dig in the sodden clay, and everyone else teased me about how pleasant it was to watch the heavy work. It was heavy, not helped by some stout ash roots that I had to cut with my spade, wishing I had brought an axe. By then, I was on my own, digging in the warm sun and listening to the first chiffchaff of the summer singing nearby.
I'm sure Wendy would approve of the location of this, her latest memorial tree. It's at 52°38'26.7"N 0°47'00.9"W, in a wood just outside Braunston-in-Rutland, at the junction of two ancient green lanes. She'd have liked it being a crossroads, too.
One lane was once a main thoroughfare from Launde to Braunston, though now it is a little used bridleway through private woodland. Min had been looking for an oak, because the crossroads already had oak saplings on two facing corners, and she thought it would be a nice idea to plant two more at the other corners. At present the green lanes are chiefly flanked by ash trees, but ash die-back has got into the plantation and many of these are dead or diseased. Wendy's tree marks the third corner, with one still vacant. In a little while, there will be a marker post with an inscription, so you'll be able to find it if you go by. There is no bench, so if you want to sit in its shade you'll just have to sprawl on the grass around its trunk. But for that you'll also have to wait a few years too. Come by in about 30 years, and you might be able to do that. Wait a century to be really sure.I didn't really think about it being Mothering Sunday until after I had the tree planted. But that seemed rather appropriate, too. Wendy was a lot of things in her life, but I think Mum was probably central to them all.
posted by Macro @ 19:36
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