In pictures

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Yesterday was really an awful lot of words, so today there shall just be trees.

I have been banging on and on at my poor cousin about how we must go and see the arboretum at Westonbirt.

'The acers,' I say, about five times a day.

Finally, today, we went.

'Which way are the acers?' I asked a very capable looking woman in an official green coat.

She pointed in three different directions, and off we marched in one of them.

Of course I knew that most of the leaves would be gone, and because the minutes slide past us, and we had got away later than intended, the sun was setting and the sky was turning a flat pewter. I knew that probably in all the guide books it says: go in October, when the sun is high in the sky. But none of that mattered because it is such an extraordinary collection of trees, and their beauty is such that even with bare branches they still look like supermodels, and anyway, there were a few brave scarlet remnants clinging to the wreckage.

I sometimes think if there was only one more thing I was allowed to do in my whole life it would be to plant some trees.

 

One of the dear readers has very rashly asked if I have any archived pictures of the dogs I could put up. The dogs are not with me now (behaving immaculately at my lovely mother's house, apparently, and being walked diligently by the Heavenly Stepfather) so obviously I do not have the usual daily snaps. You will be amazed to hear that there in fact is some rare archival footage, and since I refuse to disappoint a reader, I present it to you here:

And I suppose I could stretch to a couple more, which I just happen to have on file:

It's almost too much beauty, really. Dogs and trees: that, and a kind word occasionally, and my cup is full.