Alder, birch, apple

Storm Atiya has stripped the last of the leaves from the trees and I notice things I haven’t noticed before – but that’s the point of a walk, to notice things. Opposite the old lock-keeper’s cottage a line of trees separates the towpath from the railway line; I’d always thought the trees were alders, but now I see that they’re a mix of alder, birch, and apple, the birch trunks not silver, but a pale sunrise gold. I wish I’d brought my camera; the bare trunks with their subtle metallic hues are unexpectedly beautiful.

I can understand why, in times gone by, people thought of apples as having magical properties, for there is something wonderful about the sight of perfectly round red-gold fruits hanging from bare branches. As a girl I was told that if you peel an apple in one go and throw the peel over your shoulder, it will land in the shape of your future husband’s initials, but as I wasn’t very good at peeling apples I never found out if this were true. I don’t think anyone is going to peel today’s apples, they look drab and not at all appetising. I wonder how they came to be growing high up on a railway embankment; were the apple trees planted at the same time as the alder and birch or did they grow from discarded apple cores?