En pointe

Just a picture to show why Richard and his dad didn’t think they’d have to do anything more to the 50-year-old apple tree when they cut it down: surely the last bit would just rot away.

There’s a whole tree grown now above where they left it, balanced really well somehow over that gaping hole, and anybody familiar with what January ’09 was like for me while I tried to get used to that new number 50 on my hospital bracelet will understand why it so appeals to me that this tree that was expected to be gone grew  back to productive life: can you just see the darkened ballet shoe in the gap? Dance!