Eternal Battle

As the song goes, what a difference a day makes; from the balmy sunshine of a warm tee shirt wearing day yesterday to the cold, grey and blustery landscape of today. Strolled through the old enclosure today, a favourite place of mine that stimulates all the senses. If, as its name may imply, it was an internationally planted enclosure, all traces of those intentions have long disappeared; I'm not sure it wasn't natural woodland enclosed; it has a wild wood feel about it. No sign of uniformity remains. The wood's filled with towering mature Oaks and Beeches, grown on the whole straight and strong with massive limbs, and an under story of Holly, Yew and Birch supported by a cast of other shrubs and small trees. The floor, deep leaf litter from a hundred autumn and more. It's airy and open, increasingly so as the canopy hastily disappears. The woodland floor is littered with the remains of trees as if an eternal battle between the trees has been on going for generations, or perhaps the eternal struggle between the forces of nature. Whole trees, part trees, limbs and branches lay discarded all around; like casualties on a battle ground. It's impossible to walk in straight line for more than a few meters without needing to climb over or circumnavigate tree remains. The older trees, some who only barely cling on as a half trunk sporting a few small branches, are weary of the fight, many others have fallen. The fallen still have a presence in the woods, their story is not yet over, not for a long while. Slowly over years they fade and degrade to then become the stuff of sustenance for new life and the next generation to step up and take on the eternal fight, the wheel turns.

Listen to some fantastic 1978 Here and Now.