In the woods, in this last week of the year

Midwinter, the woodland, and the multitude of tasks that lay ahead

I walked today.

Slightly lost for what seems like hours in a forgotten woodland of tall oak trees and pines that have stood here for hundreds of years. The canopy soars vertically above me, clacking and creaking, complaining in the wind that has blown hard here in rural Oxfordshire these last few days. Huge boughs of beech cast long shadows in the muted grey light of late December. Apparently, it is not uncommon for these thick limbs to silently drop from above, shed from the trunk of the tree without warning, thudding into the soft ground or whatever else might have stood underneath. It is a peculiarity of beech, but luckily a rare one.