The Emsworthy Hawthorn

I suppose there must come a day when that skinny tree at Buttermere falls into the lake and floats off, when the lonely tree at Llanberis falls into Lyn Padern and when that willow tree in New Zealand disappears into Lake Wanaka. It must happen although I hope for many more years for all of them.

I went up to Dartmoor today, it was a foolish idea because being a bank holiday, it seemed as if everyone in southern England had gone there too. Although the car park I wanted was full, I found a handy place to tuck the car and walked up to Emsworthy rocks. When I got up there, I immediately noticed that something was awry. The little hawthorn that grows alongside the rocks about 400 metres above sea level has lost a branch. It's the right hand one (from this side) that had been shaped  by the wind and flew like a flag over the large rock. You can see it in this blip from a few years ago. That part of the tree has rotted and it probably just took a gust of wind or a pony rubbing against it to bring it down. Thankfully there's still plenty of tree left to carry on its work.

It was great to see the return of 'Happy Valley' last night for its final series after a six year wait. It's so well written and Sarah Lancashire plays her character so well. I loved her line when she was talking to her sister, "He called the Police about his own wife, what genre of tw*t does that?" I've not thought about there being genres before but I suppose in police work you might need to do some classification.