The Lonesome Pine

The camp is more or less set up and most people have arrived. We have been lucky with the weather since rain is forecast for tomorrow.
The tall sequoia pine looks rather lonely these days; for a hundred years or so (according to G., a tree surgeon who sometimes camps with us) it has grown up in a small grove of trees alongside two red oaks. Unfortunately the oaks showed signs of sickness over the last couple of years, becoming riddled with a fungus which rotted them and finally caused the taller of the two to fall during a high wind. Such was the updraught caused by its collapse, a circular marquee in the centre of the field was more or less destroyed as a powerful gust blew upward into it, mangling steel poles and tearing the fabric. Fortunately nobody was around on the field at the time.