Evening is unpredictable. One moment it's sunny, then it's gold, then it's dull, then it gives gold another innings, then it's duller and duller till it's dark. And I, it seems, never manage to get to the tree I'm following during its sunny moments. Dull is standard. Gold a bonus.
Here is a view towards the building where, one day, when it isn't after hours, or dull, or raining, I'll see if anyone will let me up to look down on the tree.
Much depends on which direction one faces. Two minutes apart, looking another way, noticing the plastic which has been there since the beginning.
No leaves, loads of catkins - and a moderate flow of ants. Ants are hard to capture crisply in fading light but there is one there if you peer.
I am captivated by the railings around the tree. I'm as much railings watching as tree following for they seem to contain as much life as the tree itself.
Someone has bent them so two prongs lean towards each other.
(A friend said 'here, I'll take a photo - so he did - and this is it.)
The 'Lost and Found' function continues with a pair of glasses.
(I'm beginning to think this tree is pivotal.)
In November there were little leaves at the base of the tree. They've gone. If we hadn't had snow, maybe they would have still been there. I don't know. But instead, at its foot - here come the plants! Green-ness! Flowers ahead! (As long as the council leaves them.)
P.S. While I was photographing the tree, people were arriving from two directions, hurrying happily into the theatre opposite. What was on? Clearly a big event. So I peered between the posters of future events stuck to the window of the box office . . . but they turned out not to be stuck on the window itself but to clear stands within . . which meant I smashed my eyebrows, nose and forehead wham against the glass. Not good.
Having failed to find the answer written up I asked a woman waiting for a friend on the steps. But she couldn't remember what she'd come to see. Evening does funny things to people.
