East Allen river,Northumberland The four Scots pines are taking on the softness of dusk as I pick my way towards themThe light is already leaving the valley on this December mid-afternoon, though it lingers on the larch tops in the hillside wood to the north. Beyond that, or the tall fields are suffused with a rosy glow. The four Scots pines by the river are taking on the softness of dusk as I pick my way towards them through sodden rushes. A half-indifferent limb sweeps down to rest on the grey drystone wall and I’ve advance to pick its cones in a personal annual ritual.
The cones,closed and pointed, have a rough solidity under my fingers, and their overlapping plates rhythmical in their Fibonacci arrangement. It takes some tugging from the springy branches to stuff my pockets. Once home,I fill a terracotta dish and set it by the wood burning stove, a small celebration of hearth and winter. By spring the tough cones will have expanded, and loosening their papery seeds,which I will sow in a nursery corner of the vegetable garden.
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Source: theguardian.com