Gardener's Latin

All morning with my head in gardener's Latin (and wishing I'd learned Latin at school, which might make my job easier) and then out before the light faded for a swift dog walk. I heard the children from the local comp pour out, a heady tide of laughter, shouting and general ribaldry, all of them reluctant participants in a cross country race, and knew the lanes would soon be clogged. I thought about when Rosh used to go to this school and I used to time my walks just so I could see her running swiftly across the fields, envying her freedom and energy.

I turned down the path by the church and saw this ash tree, which I must have passed ten thousand times, and it looked like a Bewick engraving, wild and abandoned. I don't like the onset of winter (and God, it feels like it's not far away today with ice on the roads early this morning) but I think I prefer trees denuded of their leaves. They look much bolder, more defiant. A nuthatch piped from the top branches and in the leaf litter below a blackbird was fossicking for grubs.