I love trees so it follows I enjoy gazing at our surrounding woodland, especially when its autumn colours are spreading in stately fashion across the landscape. Winter however is a different kettle of fish. We sometimes experience the sort of wild weather causing old-timers to break out in an acute case of nostalgia.
There is, I understand, a German proverb declaring a tree won't fall at the first blow. I take this to mean the first blow of the axe and while I would not argue with that, the question for today is what about high winds blowing in an extremely intense snow squall?
While it's true the chorus in a certain musical film admitted to their habit of calling the wind Maria, it is my contention they should rather call the wind Menace. Subscribers will recall essays devoted to those occasions when we've escaped dire consequences from falling trees* although our luck ran out in 2022 when a neighbour's tree fell on a corner of our house, dragging phone and power lines with it.**
A couple of weeks ago we weathered a period of extremely wet and gusty conditions. The wind was maliciously wild indeed, whistling around Maywrite Towers, rattling doors and windows like a shameless burglar, creeping in through cracks in our crumbling walls, and whining threats up and down chimneys and along dusty corridors.
When the wind reached a screaming pitch there came that sickening distinctive thud when a tree falls. Next morning we saw chunks of it lying at bottom of the back garden, having hit the ground with such force it broke into a couple of pieces, bringing a smaller tree with it for fellowship's sake. Fortunately both fell far enough away not to endanger our battlements or any neighbouring property.
Fast forward to last week when one dark afternoon the Swan of Avon's strumpet wind got into a paddy and came a-calling embedded in a powerful snow squall. I was standing upstairs observing a wild curtain of snow blotting everything out as it drove at high speed past the window and thus was in just the right place to observe a pine tree falling.
Straight towards me.
Its fall must have taken mere seconds but seemed to take a longer time and in graceful slow motion to boot. At the last second it was deflected, perhaps by a change in wind direction, so it hit the corner of the porch roof, putting it just enough off course so its landing left it parallel to a side wall. There is no doubt I couldn't have got out of its way in time to avoid a closer encounter had it continued on its original path.
On reflection, it seems Algernon Blackwood (notice his surname?) presented a thought worth considering when a character in The Man Whom The Trees Loved observed "Trees in a mass are good; alone, you may take it generally, are—well, dangerous."
As a result of my experience with a lone tree, I am in a position to reveal that, contrary to popular rumour and in the spirit of aiding future scientific inquiries, it is not true your life passes before you when you suddenly realise you're facing imminent and seemingly unavoidable danger.
* A Trio of Assassin Trees
https://maywrite.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-orphan-scrivener-issue-eighty-nine.html#cracker
** No Ringie Dingies For Us
https://maywrite.blogspot.com/2022/08/the-orphan-scrivener-issue-one-hundred.html#ringie
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