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.