Spare that Tree

On social media before Christmas I read a report from someone walking their dog on Brentmoor Common who noticed “an oldish guy carrying a six-footish pine tree. When I asked him about it he said that he was doing nothing wrong, as it is OK to cut down a tree if you wanted one and gave the impression it was almost encouraged by Surrey Heath. He said that Surrey Heath sometimes cut a load of these small pines themselves and people are OK to have one for a Christmas tree.

“But surely cutting one down yourself can't be right can it? What if we all did that? I actually find this story quite heart-warming. An old man, who has probably had his winter fuel allowance stolen by the government, has the gumption to find, and cut down his own tree, to make Christmas a little merrier.”

I understand that Surrey Wildlife Trust organise “cut your own tree" events at Christmas time. They remove small conifers to allow heath to grow and sell the trees to raise funds so in that case our elderly gentleman probably was stealing – or assisting in the regeneration of heathland?

I was somewhat surprised when I looked up the cutting of wild trees to use as Christmas trees in the UK. I was advised on what to take with me: saw, pruners, tape measure and more.

Searching further, I was informed that cutting down trees without permission is generally illegal and, it added somewhat ominously, this can have consequences. Then I found some of the consequences were fines ranging from $500 to $10,000. Not what I was looking for and obviously not intended for British readers.

A couple of years ago we bought a proper Christmas tree stand which holds the tree firmly in position and allows for watering of said tree – two inches of water is advised. Previously we had set it in a bucket of water surrounded by rocks to keep it upright. A messy job.

Evidently some people sit the tree on soil or sand but this is a no no. When you get your tree you cut a bit off the end to allow it to take up water. If you sit it on sand and soil the pores become blocked and it cannot take up water properly. Now you know – just in time for next Christmas.

I almost wrote “next year” but “next Christmas” is this year. How time flies.

Two-Faced God

The Roman god Janus is usually depicted as having two faces, one looking forwards and one backwards, which makes him just the right person to have the first month of the year named for him, when we look back over the previous year and forwards to whatever may be coming our way.

The papers are full of features about the past year, of which writers may be fairly certain, and about the coming years, of which writers can merely guess, though some guesses are simple. It will rain. Taxes will rise. A famous person will die. Someone you have never heard of will be lauded as top of their profession.

Old Moore has made a living out of looking forward. An elderly friend was a regular purchaser of Old Moore's Almanac.

This year the Almanac will be 329 years old and deserves its world record-beating inclusion in the Guinness Book of Records with such accurate world predictions – the Arab Revolutions and new terror attacks, the 2007-8 banking collapse, and predictions of the comparatively strong progress of UK through the years.

Of course, like any seer there are errors and carefully worded phrases which may be taken in different ways – Janus would be proud. The current edition is on sale for £4.25 and you can probably get a copy from Waterstones.

In it you may find predictions of UK and world affairs, celebrity astro-profiles and your own horoscope, winning periods for jockeys and trainers (which is what attracted our friend to it), the best dates for planting by the phases of the moon and fishing, as well as lighting-up time, and high and low water times.

I note it was published in June 2024, only halfway through the old year. Perhaps Mr Moore does, indeed, know something.

I was more interested in what has gone. For me, at any rate, 2024 has been an almost complete muddle. I spent last Christmas and the New Year with my youngest and her family in the Netherlands.

I then returned to this country but was back in Wolvega for her birthday in late February and stayed for Easter. Having mislaid my diary I cannot recall when I came and went during that period.

I do recall being determined to complete this page every week and the problems I had using a laptop when I am used to my PC.

Also when questions turned up they were in Dutch and I had to call for assistance in case I deleted something important. Anyway, I am told that apart from my byline stating I was in the Netherlands this page ran fairly seamlessly.

Arriving back in the UK I had a message to contact my GP and the results of that conversation led to going to A&E at St Peter's.

My clever middle daughter, on hearing the word A&E, told me to take overnight things. And that was a good job as I didn't leave for a couple of days having had an operation.

Then I had to return for a further op, which was when cancer was discovered. After that it has been weeks of visits to The Royal Surrey Hospital in Guildford, interspersed with some visits to Ashford and St Peter's hospitals.

Now the sessions of chemotherapy have finished I am on immunotherapy, for which I attend the mobile clinic conveniently parked in Morrisons Car Park.

But the days and weeks have run together and it was almost a surprise when Christmas arrived. At least that was a certain date, which I could have foreseen back in January 2024.

Possibly the only date I would have got right.

Walking the Walk

Once upon time – pre-Covid anyway – we thought it would be good idea to walk the length of the Basingstoke Canal. This was something I had long wanted to attempt. Not all in one go (it is some 31 miles long) but in bite-sized walks: perhaps five miles a time.

Despite keenness on the part of all the family, it was not easy to organise. It had to be on a weekend, and a weekend when nobody had any other engagements – football, children's parties and such like.

The weather forecast had to be good, well, suitable – not sideways rain, or gales blowing us off the towpath. In those far-off days it was somewhat simpler in that those who now dwell in the Netherlands were still dwelling in Knaphill.

It would be a two-car job: we would all go, in two cars, to the designated starting point. Both cars would then be driven to the predetermined finishing point. Both drivers would return in one car to the starting point and catch up with the others who had already set off – at not too fast a pace.

None of the walk would be fast. It was very much a “look at that!” and “how old do you think that is?” pace.

We decided to start our walk where the canal had once started: to the east of Basingstoke, where it appears on the map as a dotted line, not where it becomes blue on the map by Penny Bridge near Up Nately.

The Basingstoke Canal Society map refers to this part as the canal's dry course but much of it was marshy and boggy yet still beautiful. Between Basingstoke and Up Nately many of the original bridges have now been demolished.

From some maps it would appear the canal follows the railway line but, in fact, the opposite is true as the canal was there first – construction started in 1788.

At one time it was making money – and signing its death warrant at the same time – when the canal was used to take material for the building of the railway which would quickly be taking trade way from the canal.

This Christmas, with the family all together, we decided to continue the walk but I did not think I would manage the five-mile stretch from the Canal Centre at Mytchett, which was the end of our previous walk, to Brookwood, past the Deepcut flight of locks.

The settlement to the north was named for the work of the navvies. And when you walk through Deepcut it is almost mysterious as the high banks on either side, covered with trees, make it dark but, nonetheless, beautiful.

The golden beech leaves on the ground were colourful enough, reflected in the still water, and we were amazed to think of those navvies digging through that land – there are 14 locks in the space of two miles, raising the canal 100 feet onto the summit of the Surrey heathland. It is indeed most beautiful and awe-inspiring.

When we first did these walks I duly wrote them up on this page and a reader from Mayford contacted me asking if she could join us on some of the walks. This she did and it turned out that she is Dutch and so fitted in very well indeed. So we invited her to join us once more.

I was concerned that I would let the side down with my very slow walking and so we went back to our friends in Shopmobility and hired a wheelchair for £5 + £100 deposit. I started off by pushing the chair and found that I was walking faster, with longer strides, and standing more upright.

None of these points were lost on the family. I was doing so well that I said I would walk to the first Deepcut lock and then allow myself to be pushed.

The towpath beats any local road for the abundance of potholes, some of which have ben “repaired” by filling them with brickbats.

The ground being uneven in the extreme I would say it is wheelchair accessible but certainly not wheelchair friendly. The toddler in his pushchair fared well.

All the family took turns at pushing me. I did not strap myself in as if I ended up in the canal I wanted to get out fast.

The ground was so rough that all who tried pushing me commented on the juddering affecting their hands.

In the end I reckon I walked 99.9% of the five miles. And felt so much better for it.