Summer 2020 and the world was in lockdown, fearing for our lives from an invisible but potentially deadly rampaging virus. I was a mature mum, pregnant for the third time, last time unsuccessfully, and, like many others, fearful of the impact of this unknown virus on my unborn child.
I was stuck at home with a toddler, with nursery closed and play parks out of bounds. Most of our week was spent within the confines of our house and garden, overlooked by identical concrete houses. Once a day, we were allowed out for a short daily walk around the block with the dog, crossing the road to avoid others, sanitiser in hand, facemask in pocket.
Apart from family and friends, what sustained me most through these difficult months were our weekend escapes to a small and little-known woodland. It has minimal parking so, unlike many other local outdoor destinations during Covid times, it was thankfully very quiet, almost deserted.
In any building, I am drawn to the views from the windows, and I was so bored of staring out at our claustrophobic grey concrete housing estate. In the woods, I finally felt like I could breathe, stretch my limbs and my mind, and temporarily forget about the worries of a global pandemic.
Visiting every week through lockdown, we saw the gradual seasonal changes, small plants emerging from the undergrowth, flowers maturing into berries, leaves unfurling, spreading out in summer, changing into a spectrum of autumnal shades, before gently drifting down in winter.
We foraged for brambles, chanterelles, interesting logs, sticks and animal homes. We explored the challenging concept of tree-roots in the air from a blown-over tree and investigated the many holes, muddy puddles and tangle of serpentine roots revealed by this reversal of worlds. Fallen tree-trunks became dragons, trains, and space rockets, and we built dens, shelters, and survival camps. There was a lightning-blasted tree on the top ridge which my son called his cupboard tree, hoarding nuts, special sticks and clumps of moss in its many secret compartments. I sat my rapidly expanding self on a mossy log nearby, and listened to the bees, the birds, the wind in the leaves, so quiet without the usual intrusive aircraft noise from the nearby runway.
Sometimes we would take a small stove and burn twigs and pinecones to boil water for hot chocolate, nibble biscuits and talk tentatively about the future. Other times it would be too wet to sit down, and we’d stomp through the mud, slipping and sliding in the moss and thick leaf litter beneath the delicate silver birches, barely disturbed by humans for possibly hundreds of years.
Towards the end of that summer, I was feeling my age, the weight of this large baby and the responsibility of bringing them into this uncertain world. I couldn’t walk far, certainly not far enough to tire a bouncy spaniel and an energetic three-year-old. I let my partner take them off to the old fallen tree for some imaginative play, and I settled down amongst the roots of a large beech tree beside the path. I just about fitted between the large root buttresses, with my back against its sturdy grey trunk, and the leaves and branches gently shifting and fluttering high above me.
The sun shone through the many shapes, sizes, textures and viridian shades of a multitude of leaves, all perfectly adapted and adapting to capturing the light and energy from the sun. Birds called all around me, grasses and twigs rustled against each other, a huge variety of insects and worms crept, whirred, gnawed, and silently burrowed in the rich fertile earth beneath me. I felt surrounded by life, literally cradled by the massive roots of this ancient tree. It was all just carrying on as it always had for decades if not centuries, completely detached from the international events that have troubled humanity over this time.
Bathed in a beam of sunlight, I felt so lucky to be there, in that moment, in that place, almost out of time itself. I could feel my baby shifting inside me, growing and nourishing itself from me, also hearing the birdsong, feeling the sun’s warmth, and enjoying our shared moment of peace.
Not long afterwards, my son made his dramatic entry into the noisy, unpredictable, complicated external world. But I will forever remember that long golden moment of being surrounded by and even part of the vast interconnected ecosystem of an ancient Scottish woodland. Of growing a precious new life within me, whilst being sustained and supported, encircled by the roots of a centuries-old tree.