Country diary: Time has turned this tree trunk soft as trifle sponge | Sara Hudston

Horner Woods, Somerset: During the holidays I went in search of an old acquaintance by the side of a tumbling riverThree years ago, in May, when the wood rang with birdsong, I photographed an old ash tree growing at the side of Horner Water. It was a stump with two broken forks, but its moss-furred trunk was firm and thickly rooted, drawing the earth to it. New branches, the width of a child's arm, sprouted from the bole and waved green fingers.I sought it out again during the Christmas holidays, when the wood was greyed by midwinter and the only sound was the regular muffled bump of a boulder rocking deep in the tumbling stream. Continue reading...