Hankering for the Eagle Oak

Now that my friend Peter has made it safely home from New Zealand, I fear being engulfed by a surge of home-sickness as I really have no idea when I will be able to follow that example. As an early and slightly perturbing indication of this,  and for some time now, on my daily rounds I have been thinking about an oak tree in the New Forest - the so-called Eagle Oak. What sparked it all is that a key section of my exercise area is dominated by a big old oak tree, which is a pretty magnificent specimen. It's not as old or as thick as the Eagle Oak but probably twice as tall because it stands all by itself. 

 

I circle it and talk to it just as a member of the Woodland Trust should,  and I tell it about its English relative. The Eagle Oak is hard to find these days and deep in a quiet part of the Forest it gets its name from the fact that it was where the last white-tailed Eagle was shot back in the 1830s.

            It's bigger and older than it looks - something that comes out best in a pre-digital photo taken along time ago of Cherry and the kids trying to measure its girth. I couldn't find the photo here in Newport, but this one of Philippa and Barney  sitting underneath it gives some indication. It's nothing like the redwoods of course, such as one of the many that I did force Cherry to stand under. I have a weakness for trees, and look forward to renewing my acquaintance with the Eagle Oak, one day sometime.

.  

            The nostalgia was also sparked by going through a book about maps which was amongst the handful that I grabbed from the town library just before the shut-down. I had gone through all the ancient and medieval maps of different parts of the world, and came across just three 16th Century maps of English counties. The first was of Middlesex, where I was born, the second Wiltshire, where I live and the third Cornwall my favourite place for a holiday, the latter even showing 'Clovelle' in Devon where we have stayed so often. 'The Devises' is shown almost exactly in the centre of Wiltshire where it should be of course.  Plainly the fates are trying to tell me something.

 

            And then of course, there are regular updates from Nathan about what's been happening in the village, woodworm in the mahogany chest of drawers, the lawn mower rusting to pieces, that sort of thing. I'm lucky to have him. He and his brother have decided to make up the back path to the village and are busily engaged on that. Talk about public-spirited. One other resident is contributing to it, so I shall do so too if remotely.   

            I have also, just for interest done the statistics and so far the result is the discovery that I would be about twice as safe living in Wiltshire as I am in Rhode Island although at the moment both rates are very low when compared to other parts of the country - and we all know what Disraeli said about lies and statistics. The worry is that the pressure to reopen the economy is strong in the US, especially when emanating from 'experts' in the White House and so there is a definite risk of this being done too soon. Fortunately Rhode Island is Democrat territory and our Governor sounds very sensible and cautious, but there are limits to how long she can stand against the tide. And with the warm weather now almost here, alongside the opening of the leaves on the chestnut trees, the traffic along Bellevue Avenue is much greater than it was and there are far more people on the Cliff walk  below us than there were a few weeks ago. Rhode Islanders are looking forwards to getting a little way back to normal at least.

            Even I ventured out in the car today. I thought the battery needed attention. It was the first time I have been out of the grounds for 7 weeks. I felt a touch nervous ! It reminded me of one of our rescue cats, Merlin; he was a show cat and had been kept all his life in a cage. The poor old thing had agoraphobia and literally shook with terror the first time we took him into the garden, so much so that he squirmed out of Cherry's arms and ran into the fishpond. I had an inkling of how he felt ! The plan was to have a picnic lunch by the sea at Brenton point. But when I got there all the parking places had been sealed off so I just came back again ! Obviously, all the traffic going up and down Bellevue Avenue is merely going for a drive, no more than that  - an interesting discovery. But perhaps  opening that car park will be one of the governor's easing measures - in which case I'll probably try again.  

Until then I'll have to make do with my own view of the sea which really does look different every day. We've had some spectacular storms recently, great clouds of spray over the headland. Dramatic stuff.