The importance of looking up

If there was ever a salutory message this is it. If you don’t look up or around you miss the best bits.   I never look at this apple tree.   It is the last remnant of a very sorry collection of apple trees we inherited.   Its fruit is small, soft and mushy.   Even the horses think twice before eating them.   The fruit also falls all over the lawn and turns to maggoty mush if you forget to pick them up.

It has dead branches that are too high to prune. It casts a shade that I do not need.   But then, last week I was plodding past it on the way to the potting shed and I heard a hum.   Bees.   The entire tree was zinging with bees.   And blossom.

I don’t think I have ever admired the blossom before.   So, suddenly, instead of just looking around, below and beyond this unremarkable tree I have come to admire it.

I am back in London for a short week, and have promised to put down all the notes about the garden that are on scraps of paper and unlabelled photo files.   Tardy. Not good.   But it should all be sorted by the time I’m ready to plunge back in.