Photo courtesy of KFF
Never before have I wanted to hug a tree. I mean, I like nature and all that, but I’d never classed myself as a hippy-dippy long-flowing-skirt-in-the forest sort of woman. Nothing wrong with that of course, but I’ll leave it to the more natural earth mothers thanks very much.
But here I was, in a really pretty wood, surrounded by bluebells, wanting to give a tree a really big cuddle. Only I couldn’t. Not because Kite Flying Friend would have laughed – although I think he might have done – but because it was too plastered in ‘stuff’ for me to be able to hug it without doing serious damage. To myself, that is, or to the stuff – but not to the tree though, she was far too strong for that.
You see this particular tree is the one where the fairies live, and when people come to visit them they often leave gifts. Old wooden cuckoo clocks and weather houses seem popular, but also dolls, and necklaces, and stick pins, and coins wedged into the bark. KFF even spotted a green plastic goblin leering from the balcony of a weather house – and I’m sure there was a little pink teddy bear somewhere too. All the kind of stuff that would have adhered itself disastrously to my coat if I had got as close as I wanted to.
As well as the stuff, there were letters. Letters left by the children to the fairies. Some were mini inquisitions: How old are you? What are your names? How long have you lived here? Others were telling the fairies about themselves, or asking for wishes. One little girl wished for a happy family – just try reading that sort of letter without it bringing a lump to your throat.
And do you know what? The fairies had replied. In a plastic pocket on the side of the tree were letters waiting to be collected by all the children who had written. Thanking them for their good wishes and pictures, answering their questions and wishing them a happy time in the wood. Very well mannered fairies these – obviously brought up to mind their Ps and Qs. You can only imagine the delight on the face of a child who came to collect such a personal reply.
Which is probably why I wanted to hug the tree. To thank it for giving shelter to these delightful and polite creatures of the forest who are heaven bent on giving so much pleasure to people only just a little larger than themselves. Surely wanting to hug the tree was nothing to do with its older face, its pagan face, of connection through the earth to a greater power?
So instead of a hug I opened my purse and slotted a coin into its gnarled bark. I found a place where it would stick fast until it was harvested by the fairies for their regular donation to Barnado’s. And I made a wish. A very big wish. But it’s a secret because it won’t come true if I tell.
