house of sticks

A tree born in 1518 and still alive. It was a priviledge to gaze at it. . .

I have a real love of trees. Their branches reach up to the skies like wooden lungs. I am a perpetual collector of sticks and cones when I am out walking... and now my daughter does it too. We bring the sticks and cones indoors and keep them about the place. I need to have these things around me, I call it having a pagan heart. I like to bring the outdoors indoors.

My Dad recognises this in me, and so on his recent walking trip to Spain he brought back two huge pine cones from the tree above which was growing at 8000 ft. They are perfect on my mantlepiece.

And here is my childhood sweet chestnut again, this time the wilderness in summer, and J now old enough to be held in its branches like I was as a child.

This weekend I came upon some wooden buttons from Toft Alpaca Shop. The type of tree from which the button is made is etched on to the back of each... and the wood is salvaged, so no sad tree souls.

Woods destroyed to build 'new build' housing estates break my heart. The only solace is the coppice left between...

I must leave you now in order to bring in some pots of ivy from the garden. I plan to somehow grow ivy up the walls of my bedroom just like Colin's mother's abandoned room in the film of The Secret Garden. More outdoors indoors..