Country diary: I've known these mighty conifers all my life. I will miss them

Wyming Brook, South Yorkshire?: ?Replacements are waiting in the wings - oak, rowan, black alder. But this fracturing of memory is never easyThe presence of a new official-looking sign in a treasured place is always unnerving. At the top of Wyming Brook it was doubly so. I have a disproportionate affection for this wooded gorge, affection born from not just from my own exploration as a teenager, but also from bringing our kids here when they were little more than toddlers.The path beside the brook is a jumble of often-slippery boulders and tree roots twisting steeply downhill towards the Rivelin Valley below. Towering conifers dominate both sides of the stream: red cedar, eastern hemlock, Douglas fir, red pine and sitka. The kids would teeter along, pausing every so often to crane their necks upwards, glorying in this small slice of the Rockies on the western fringes of Sheffield. Continue reading...