Poison Ivy

Parked outside the college this morning before setting off on a walk along the river. Somewhat puzzled by all the dead leaves in the gutter and on the pavement - it was a bit early for autumn and all the trees seemed to be fully in leaf. A closer examination revealed the answer. All of them were swathed in ivy from the ground all the way to the uppermost branches. All except this one. A six foot stretch of the trunk had been totally stripped of ivy, causing all the growth above to die off. Surprisingly, the bark of the tree seemed undamaged - presumably the ivy didn’t want to kill the tree, just use it for support. I shall be intrigued to see what happens next. Will they pull all the dead ivy down, or just leave it to naturally decay? And will the other trees covered in ivy be subject to the same treatment? Whatever, it may be something that requires regular monitoring as the ivy at the base of the tree still seems to be alive and heading skywards.
Having idled away ten minutes or so in such idle speculation, we set off for our walk. We hadn’t been along the river for a while and it was good to see the recent rains had increased the level somewhat. Still pretty low though, and certainly not going to trouble the new flood defences any time soon. Had our usual coffee and then picked up a bit of shopping before wandering back to the car. Maybe we shouldn’t have spent that time at the outset idly speculating about the tree, as we got caught in a shower when we were still five minutes away from the shelter of the car.
Spent the afternoon rehearsing for the play. Looking back through my blips, I noticed that it was almost exactly twelve months ago that we all met up after the first lockdown to start reading for the Panto. As we know, that never happened (fingers crossed for January 2022) but we’re fairly confident the play will go ahead as planned.
Finished the day in true rock’n’roll style by doing the ironing.