Читать книгу The Tree Climber’s Guide - Jack Cooke - Страница 14

Fraxinus excelsior/Common ash

Wandering away from the riverbank in Putney, I follow a small stream that strikes out across Barnes Common, wrapped around by a protective hedge of sycamore, oak, willow and ash.

Birds call everywhere along the brook and broken tree limbs twist in the wind, creaking loudly. The stream is surprisingly clear and, aside from a couple of beer cans, no rubbish floats along its course. The path I follow is bordered by blackberry bushes and great stands of nettles; in among these a St George’s Cross has been spray-painted onto the flank of a young sycamore, an unwilling patriot.

Further on, past a bridge that leads onto Putney Heath, a magnificent oak rises, stag-headed, with huge white coils of dead ivy wrapped around its trunk. The tree seems half-suffocated and bent out of shape by this creeping garrotte. The ivy’s dead hair is deeply cobwebbed and I wonder what kind of arachnids haunt the maze. At its base an orange ring has been daubed. Perhaps this is a mark of death and the oak has been condemned to be felled. It seems an unnecessary fate; away from the dead branch tips, leaves are sprouting from the tree’s thick limbs.

I break out into Rocks Lane Field and then back to the treeline where the brook lies concealed. Stepping into a hidden clearing, the bankside is a warren of exposed roots. I climb an ash straight as a flagpole to get a better view of this intricate carpet. Below, the brook is fast-flowing back out to the river and the sea, and the sandy bottom is yellow in the afternoon sun. Two seagulls wheel overhead before turning east.

This secluded haven is the perfect schoolboy’s hangout, a place to smoke stolen cigarettes and play cards. Where the brook disappears under Rocks Lane it’s worth turning south behind the adjacent tennis courts to explore the remains of Old Barnes Common Cemetery. In among a host of beheaded angels and fallen crosses is a stand of tall yew trees, shedding their poisonous crop of leaves on the dear departed.