And welcome to the last part of our voyage around the yew tree. Here are the last of the yew tree photos, showing some detail of the berries and some photos of the general effect that yews have in a churchyard. The berries in photo five are just slightly larger than life size on my monitor, so unless you are viewing this on a giant screen in a contingency bunker under a mountain they should be about the same for you.
It was announced here last week that the government plans to sell off about half of the 1.85 million acres of woodland overseen by the Forestry Commission. The news was greeted with a large degree of dismay because these things can only be sold once and will probably be sold off very cheaply (though not to us little people) and they are not really the governments to sell anyway.
The thought of walking through one of our forests and coming up against a large fence erected by Dismayland or McDogshitz doesn't really gladden the heart. Large parts of our woodland are what are sometimes referred to as 'conifer desert' meaning that because the trees are planted so close together no light can reach the ground and nothing else will grow there. These forests would admittedly not be missed very much but I wouldn't trust private companies to be willing to allow access, as it has been hard enough already to gain these rights to roam that we have. It seems to me to be part of the proposed fire sale of the countries assets to pay for some tiny part of the bank bailout, which also gives the kind of people who caused this mess in the first place the opportunity to pick up important parts of any countries infrastructure at a knock down price. A bit of a cheek really which hasn't gone unnoticed.
The other parts that would be interesting to investors would be the 'famous bits' like something called Sherwood Forest, so we can look forward to a funfair experience and hotels in the middle of a forest instead of peace and quiet. Another idea has been for the use of golf courses. I am not a huge fan of golf and I don't know a lot about the game but a forest doesn't seem to me to be the best place for a round of golf, what with there being rather a lot of trees in the way, though I expect something could be done about that particular problem.
Coming soon. We finally leave the graveyard and have a nice river walk, somehow ending up on the wilds of Dartmoor. Well fresh.
8 comments:
Yes but John, what about the right of satanists to hunt children in the great outdoors? I don't know if you've ever hunted children but it's not much fun if you're restricted to the nature reserve in the middle of a motorway. You need some space or the whole thing is over in a trice.
Bullshit aside, lovely pix mate. Somehow I hadn't noticed the berries before but here they're unmissable. Fabulous - reason enough to love a yew. (NB. not 'ewe'. Whilst I'm no expert I'm pretty sure the loving of ewes is illegal). Never mind the sodomy, everything came together this third tree mate: the most handsome of the three, flush with berries, in the most picturesque graveyard, and a squirrel turns up to complete the picture. Had I been there it would have made my day. As is, it made my day once removed ha ha.
As for our Grey Trace (geddit?) in spite of the 'alls fair' gag, there's no cheating. Sure, I put myself in as a fan of my own blog but only because it's idiotic. Perhaps that can be a rule: You're only allowed to cheat if it's stupid. Thus:
ATTENTION EVERYBODY!
If you like John's blog and appreciate the marvellous countryside jaunts he takes us on, don't click on that 'followers' thingy on the front page. John has a lot on his plate and that would just distract him and otherwise give him a swell-head. Instead head over to my place and click on my 'followers' thingy. Then you can relax safe in the knowledge that you've expressed an apprecation of John's work but haven't impeded him or otherwise turned him into a raving egomaniac monster.*
God bless you
*I'll admit that that last one is somewhat unlikely but best to be on the safe side.
Hi ,john ,how beautifull is this tree ? when i saw the first photo i said {wow} ,the red berries and the dark green leaves seem so nice together .
mybe you have an idea about this tree , it is called {Juniperus_excelsa } and in arabic { AL Lizzap} , it is an old rarity one , and lives in high mountain above than 2000 meters , in very cold hard weather,and keeps alive more than 1000 years ,it is strong tree .
you can find it in Syria and lebanon , Greec also ,in my country you find it in AL kalamon mountain chain , it is near my town ,it has wonderful smell and strong roots .
you can get more informations here
WWW.fotopedia.com/wiki/juniperus_excelsa.
if you like that .
enjoy your green forests .
Nice one nobody and thanks. We enjoy the squirrels a lot here but we are still chuckling about The Dramatic Look of the wonderful animal that you linked to at your piece. Very funny indeed!
And as far as the Grate Race goes, for all the followers who turn up here a small amount of money might also be donated to charity* and every new follower also gets sent a lovely presentation box of real Cuban cigars at Christmas which is a fantastic offer that only applies to new followers and is all part of the wonderful service that I try to provide here**. So if anyone has been hesitating about becoming a follower now really is the time to do it. Just press that button and follow away, you know it makes sense and it will also save you £££s on your basket of shopping too!***
*probably won't
**not really
*** this is a lie
Hi and thanks Evat
Yes the berries are lovely on the tree. At the moment most of them have now fallen onto the ground and as I have decided that there are not enough yew trees around I have collected a load so that when I go out for a walk I can take them and plant them as I go. Getting the seeds out of the berries turned out to be quite a messy business. I didn't realise that yew berries are quite so sticky and it is very difficult stuff to get off your hands, it also involved a lot of handwashing as the yew seeds are very poisonous and I didn't want to take any chances.
Nice one for the link and information about the Juniperus Excelsa, not a tree I know of really and interesting that it should grow to be so old. I will have a look at that in a bit, they sound lovely.
Autumn has just properly arrived here now and the leaves have turned the most fantastic of colours so I better get out and take some photographs of them before the wind comes and blows them all away.
cheers evat and thanks again
you are welcome john , in arabic {ahlan wa sahlan } ,if it interesting for you to know .
Thanks Evat and ahlan wa sahlan. I'll try and remember that, it is interesting to know. I was never much good at languages at school. I remember a lot of us being told not to bother to learn french as we would never go there (not very encouraging of them really) but I did go to France quite a bit and very nice it is too.
I did find that I picked up a bit of french quite quickly. I think it has something to do with whether you actually use a language or not as to whether you can remember it or not.
English does contain some arabic words. The ones I know are to do with astronomy, names of stars mostly, as I think astronomy was more advanced in arabic countries when these stars were named.
Then of course there's the old name for Britain which is Albion, meaning the white I think.
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