In April I wrote a blog post about a retreat that I had been on. I thought that I had finished with it as a subject but when I came to develop and scan some of the photos I took I realised there was something else to say.
The location of the retreat was an educational trust housed in some beautifully refurbished farm/manor buildings next to the grounds of a later manorial building, possibly 18th century, itself surrounded by extensive fields and woodlands. As a retreatant you have the right to wander in these grounds.
Sycamore leaves in April. Beautiful patterning.
One morning I decided to take myself off during free time with my Rolleicord. It was just after I had taken the photograph above that I noticed a figure approaching. I had seen one or two random dog walkers on other days but this chap looked a bit different. He was dressed as if by one of the better kind of gents’ country outfitters circa 1960: leather, waxed cotton, moleskin, a trilby. A suspicion formed in my mind.
I was approaching from his right and could see that I would have to exercise a quarter-turn back onto the main path and so pass him. Clearly we could not ignore one another.
“Good morning” I said to seize the initiative.
“Good morning” he replied.
I think there may have been a few words about the weather then - silence.
Then he said, “Who are you?”
Since we were both Englishmen of a certain age and therefore in the business of Giving Nothing Away For The Moment conversationally I thought this was a tad direct. I clearly wasn’t a dog walker since I didn’t have a dog But he had asked me so I replied.
“I’m Peter” I said.
This had the merit of answering his question yet revealing nothing. (I think that somewhere in the back of my mind was a scene from a Just William story in which William meets a Great Actor somewhere in his village. After a short exchange the Great Actor booms at William: “Don’t you know who I am?” And William replies: “No, an’ I bet you don’t know who I am either.”)
By now, my suspicion had turned to certainty. This was the Lord of the Manor. He clearly did not see it as his place to explain that and so I had to take him by the hand conversationally, so to speak.
“You’re the owner?”
“Yes.”
I explained that I was a retreatant from next door. (Who else would be walking around his private forest, I wondered, and then thought of the dog walkers. Maybe he was patrolling.)
“Of course you are!” he cried. “How stupid of me.”
For my part, I wanted no toff-meets-commoner politenesses so I yanked the conversation right round and asked about how he managed the woodlands. Very little, seemed to be the answer. Then I asked about the many, many yew trees and their age. But he, in turn, was having none of my man-to-man egalitarianism.
“Not very old” he shrugged, “The Victorians were very fond of them, you know” Was there just a hint of lineage there, I wondered.
I thought that I had done my bit for inter-class harmony by that point.
“Good to meet you” I said.
“Quite” he replied, and we went on our separate ways.
He seemed a decent cove and I would like to have stayed chatting to him for longer but I didn’t think he was inviting it. I did get this photograph of a beech tree below, though, immediately after.
It was just before taking this picture that I had the encounter above. This is a magnificent beech which stands at the crossing point of two woodland paths. Or is it two beech trees wrapped round one another? I should have looked a little more closely. Now what I see is two trees locked in a lifelong embrace.