Trees

This post is just for Angela - some more about trees. I love trees too. That's why my novel is set in a forest and that's why I draw them a lot - though I have to admit that being in a whole forest of trees makes me feel claustrophobic. I like to be able to see into the distance.

Apparently, since 'National Tree Day' started in Australia in 1996, 1.5 million volunteers have planted 11.5 million trees and shrubs. That's just in organised events on the day. It doesn't count people like my father-in-law who goes out tree planting just when he has nothing else to do. Farmers used to clear every tree in sight. Now they're working hard to rectify the damage. The place certainly looks better with tree-lined creeks and fence lines. There are more birds around too, now they have 'ribbons of green' to follow from one place to another.

We have a tree in our garden that grew there by chance. It's a River Gum. It will grow gigantic and cause all sorts of problems...eventually. It came up just as I got pregnant with my eldest. I looked at it and thought I really should transplant that. But somehow I couldn't bring myself to do it. I'd taken so long to fall pregnant and in my emotional pregnant state, the future of that tree seemed linked somehow to the future of my baby. If I transplanted it and it died, it felt as if I'd lose the baby as well. Stupid I know, but that's how it felt at the time. So I let it grow and P humoured my silliness, saying we'd probably retire before it got too big anyway. After 15 years it's already about forty feet high. We'd better retire soon, I think. (I'd add a photo of it, but I can't access the photos on our PC at the moment - but that's another blog!)