Country diary: Saved by a tree I didn't know I knew | Ed Douglas

Blacka Hill, South Yorkshire: The snow is so thick, on the ground and in the air, that I can no longer tell one from anotherAfter quiet days of snowdrops and blackthorn blossom, winter had turned on its heel and roared back in to give us the most snowfall on a March day for more than 40 years. Lower down the hill, among the trees, there was shelter, where snow from the milk-white sky was piling on the birches, their branches flexing wearily, and also among young oaks that had kept their leaves, their bronze a patch of colour in an otherwise monochrome world.Not much was on the move. A crow, settled in the upper branches of a rowan, fluffed itself as I passed before settling again. A robin burst from its snow hole and alighted on a grey gritstone wall spattered with white. A fox's neat prints zippered away into the blanketed understory. But mostly, all was silent, except for each breath inside my jacket's hood. Continue reading...