Silver birch and pine Triangle

Birches and pines and other miscellaneous trees gather in an isosceles shaped corner on the western edge of the park, leading out towards Middleton Road and the nice but rather impersonal characterless residential area which is called London Fields. There are nice early terraces, some elegant, some cute, interspersed with new housing, new flats, few pubs and shops, lots of cars, and lots more money than twenty years ago when I used to cycle round here.

Chestnuts

London Fields is characterised by its magnificent planes - the galleons of the Fields. But there is a superb series of Chestnuts that form the north border of the park, along Richmond Road. Conker creating, luscious leaved beauties, they are a nice contrast to the series of plane avenues, and are somehow less well-known as there is no peripheral path on the north side, inside the gates. The people who benefit most are those who use the picnic tables and benches in the north field. To use those it is neccessary to haves some sort of dependency issue - a user or addict. I call them the users' benches - fair dos. They start early and get a whole day in, watched over by the benign Chestnut presences.

Alpine Grouping

.This grouping is found down by the babies' playground - north side of the park. A group of Alpine trees congregate in a tiny copse. Some of them even lean, as if they were on a steep mountainside. Now its September and there are some beautiful days, as there always are. I am remembering 12 months ago when the baby came. What a joyous and overwhelming time. Happily my mum has forgotten the times that I shouted at her during those early days.
Now little one plays on these swings - she's good at it.
Me, I am psychologically empty, a bit.

My girl is obsessed by parallax

From the pram-eye view the world is a huge place, whirling like a galaxy from the proscenium arch of her canopy. That near trees and branches move and catch the light against the long-view and the background delights her.

The whole park moves, while she lies, schnuggled up in a blanket in a bed on wheels. I share her joy in parallax. The park becomes an abstract kinetic sculpture.

The lime leaves here throw back pure green to the receiving retini. Is lime green lime like a lime citrus fruit, or lime like lime tree leaves?

Crazy-headed Copper Beech

Three characterful copper beeches rank the twin tennis courts. This one is a crazy-haired lady. Obstinate, stubborn, head-strong, and sturdy. They protect the lower khazis (not sure how you spell khazi - this is just a guess - is it a Hindi word?) and are the analogues to the cherry maidens who look after the other loos. You can find them, the tennis courts, and the beeches at the extreme north west corner of London Fields. If you are walking out of the park, you cross a zebra crossing, go up Navarino Road towards the bus stop of the useful 38 which takes you to the barbaric civilisation of Islington.

Three young saplings

Catching the light. They stand on the north edge of an east-west running walk and cycle path.
The benches in London Fields are particularly fine. They must have been commissioned recently - sturdy cast iron bolted down, but numerous. I love doing snapshot audits of who is using the benches. Sitting on a park bench is wonderfully unproductive. Some people just never do it, unless to wolf a sandwich while looking at the Evening Standard.
The litter bins are quite good too.
Today is quite sunny - a lull between all this hardly ceasing rain.

Two hawthornes

Protect the wall of the gardeners yard, up at the north west segment of London Fields. They overlook the Cricket Pitch and are pretty in May, with white mini blossom. Here you see they cast a lovely "Blotti" shadow over the brickwork, and are somehow redolent of an age gone by. See how the buildings speaking of sixties brutalism peek up here too, as in many of the tree shots. I like the contrast

Peeping Poplars

London Fields West Side. These two sisters, long, lean, graceful guard the southern fields of the West Side, near the entrance to Shore Road, next to the tower block on Landsdowne Drive. Poplars are popular, they often have friends. There was a distinctive row of poplars at the bottom of my gran's garden, until most of them were felled by the big storm of '87. They sound great, look like tall adolescent girls that have not quite grown into themselves yet.

Plane Tree Mother, a couple of score miles from here

All things are connected, and none more so than trees to trees. Invisible pollen connects species. Spores fly. Here is a mother of planes, at Mottisfont, Hampshire. Home to Sophie of Djenne Djenno for a while. Taken by David Nice, Russian music specialist and tree-spotter, this June. Not of London Fields, but a tree they should know about, one to get under the bark, feel in your sap, revere.

Plane Trees are Galleons

The gnarled plane trees are galleons, the tall ships of the park. These are London Field's beauties. An Armada of Planes, laid out in rows, defining the haphazard shape of the Fields. London Fields always seems larger than it really is, because you never quite know where you are, the trapezoidal shape is hard to hold in your mind, and you always get unexpected sight-lines, with usually one going off into some unknown zone. The fact that no main roads really border the park helps with its useful dislocation, it means it is quiet, always, and impervious to total comprehension. No-one quite knows exactly where London Fields is. Try to say London Fields with the emphasis on the first word. Funny uhn? Here is a Plane Tree, a plain symbol of London, settling in to its summer foliage.

Rogue Sycamore

Down in the south quadrant, where the path bifurcates: the one which has the cycle lane alongside it goes north east, towards Pub in the Park, Hackney Central, or London Fields Station, and the other goes towards the Open Air Swimming Pool, or the Tennis Courts, or the residential area that is called London Fields. In the V of the bifurcation is an attractive rogue sycamore. Roguish as it has asserted itself in between the Plane Galleons, which are the Queens of the park, the Text of the trees. The sycamores are the back-beat, the sub-text. Nobody planted the sycamores in London fields, they are all self-propagating. And young and slender, giving off a noli-me-tangere vibe of a beautiful tall child

Cherry Trees by the Conveniences

Cherry Sentries of the inconveniently closed still conveniences, London Fields, East Side. They are recommissioning them, but until then, keep on using the services of the Lime Soothsayer, (See below). These three graces guard the west side of the humble buildings. But would it be good if the loos were turned into the London Field's cyclists' cafe, offering espressi and quoissants instead. Now there are a couple of kiosks in and near the Swimming Pool (which some people call the Lido).
Shy, dignified graces of Cherry, shiny barked, semi-hidden.

May may tree

Since it is almost not May anymore, the next dryad tree spirit has to feature the May in full blossom. This solitary flowering specimen grows on the south edge of the lateral east/west path and bike path, just to the north of the recently resurfaced football field. A brash, blushing, sturdy thing it splurges unlikely colour in a thick froth. Now June is coming at the end of this week and the major expostulation of bloom is over, so here it is for the last entry in May: the May tree

Scotch Corner

By an entrance to the park from the light-industrial, railway arch culture area east of London Fields, are a trio of fine Scots Pines, lending a forest-like, mountain-scenery air to the park. Long my they live, releasing their sweet clean scent over the zone. When I was pregnant I loved the smell of any solvents: gasoline and pine floor cleaner the best. That has faded now, but still the smell of pine is exciting, wild.

The Lime at the Corner

The Lime at the inner corner, on South Field - the field which has become the chill-space where people sunbathe and canoodle the most. I think it is has become the top picnic spot as it is not on the way to anywhere and the park goes right up the edge here. It is near the sweet modernist house, and the derelict park-keeper's house that EVERYONE including Staff, Andrew Stafford has their greedy eyes upon. This grand lime is a soothsayer. It announces the coming of the breeze with its paper thin high leaves before the others are stirring. The sound is a glorious shimmering ripple. Provides a lot of dapple for picnic with baby. Dryad is masculine somehow, and rather tolerant as quite a few people take a cheeky piss at the base of its black trunk.

Catkins

All the catkins are hanging and falling down, on the trees that do catkins, like sycamores. Found a sweet trio of sycamores: the three graces in the southern quadrant of the fields.

Lone pine

This unlikely dryad stands slightly stranded in the north field, looking nordic, signifying wildness.
Genus: Pine, Species

The Trees of London Fields

As I have been on maternity leave, and moving to London Fields on the day my daughter was born, I have entered into a psycho-spiritual relationship with the trees of London Fields. Here is my web-poem dedicated to the trees, singular and as a whole, of the Fields.