Trees along the River of Stones

River of Stones has been a project to share 'small stones' of observation on our blogs through the month of January. I've enjoyed taking part, both writing my own stones here and reading other people's stones on their blogs. I'm generally a very observant person (though I'm also easily distracted and if I'm internally writing a poem all sorts of things can pass me by!) and quite good at taking notes but the River of Stones has helped me to improve in both areas.

Some people will continue the River of Stones with another month in July. I won't do that though - I've felt some of the 'stones' I've shared here have not been polished enough to want to share in ordinary circumstances and the 'stones' sometimes have felt to be cluttering the blog over the past month. So I will keep my future stones in a notebook and only share them (here and on Twitter) if I feel they merit it.

Another project I recently signed up for is Tree Year. I chose a hornbeam as my primary tree to study for this but this tree has been badly damaged in the winter storms and now has been partially cordoned off as the footbridge it grows next to is closed for maintenance work! So my study of this fascinating tree will be somewhat curtailed! Although I have chosen other trees too (a cherry tree across the road from our flat and a group of hawthorns alongside the Water of Leith) what i may well do is just blog about any trees as and when inspired.