Shady business

Sunday 5th Jul 2026

It has gone at last. At least for the present time. I do not know about you, but I had to work out ways of managing the heat. When we lived in the cottage, we were quite cool indoors because the medlar tree shaded our sunroom in the morning and the old magnolia tree shaded the kitchen during the day. At mealtimes we sat under our quince tree, which had a canopy in the shape of a parasol. Here in the new house, we have no shade in the garden.

Last autumn we planted some new silver birch trees. I kept them well watered in the spring but as the months wore on, I noticed that some did not come into leaf. What should we do? I watered them but, in the end, gave up and all that was left was the bare black skeleton. We would have to replant this coming autumn. But it meant a delay on getting shade. Trees take a while to be big enough to give shade.

In town on the hottest day, I was very thankful of the established trees. These are the ones that have been spared by the council. What a wise decision that was. Fully grown trees are difficult to replace because we know that Rome was not built in a day. Here I sat taking a shady break with fellow shoppers. We all moved up to give each other a seat on the bench. A young man offered me a tempting lick of his ice cream as I plucked up courage to move as quickly as possible to my melting car.

Our roads have been closed during the day because of road works and we are all learning to plan our lives round this. You can escape the long (very long) diversion by travelling before 9.30am and in the evening after 4pm. There is often a queue which I joined in the heat of the evening. There were ten in front of me and gradually the number of waiting cars snaked into the distance of my rear driving mirror. Four o’clock came and went. There must be a problem. Sure enough, a construction worker came along the line of puffing cars to tell us to turn left down a country lane. We all dutifully did as we were told giving the little villages a surprise with a trail of cars breaking the silence.

And I can hardly believe it but something else had broken too. The two ‘dead’ trees have suddenly broken into leaf. There are little green leafy shoots so fresh and green they stand out in our parched landscape. We will have trees and shade after all.

(Taken from my column in The Star)