Saturday 15 August
A pretty quiet day compared to my quite extraordinary day yesterday. I spent most of it at home, as did Lisa and the kids.
I am back to refereeing football tomorrow morning. A pre-season friendly under-18 game will be the first game back since lockdown. I’ve been getting my head round the latest updates to the laws of the game. It’s going to be great to don the kit and get back on the pitch again, but my fitness is likely to be a challenge. We will certainly be having a water break during each half.
We did go for a dog walk this evening to yet another place that was completely new to me. Furze Hill woods in Mistley was utterly unknown up until this evening. Lisa had known about this ancient woodland and in particular a very old tree that carries a few tales with it.
On our way there, we drove through Lawford, where a number of police cars and officers were securing a ‘normal’ house on the main road. Last night the police had raided the house and arrested the 64-year-old man who lived there. They found a number of home-made pipe bombs, detonating a couple in controlled explosions. More will come out about this, but it is very odd to have something like this happening so locally.
When we arrived at the park, I recalled playing football there about sixteen years ago. But never remembered such a large wooded area surrounding it.
Within seconds of walking down one of the many paths into it, the woods folded behind us. It really felt like it wanted people to be there like it fed off the presence of people enjoying wandering through it. I heard other voices and dogs barking but couldn’t see them. The recent rainfall had stirred up the smells from the woodland floor which was now soft and springy underfoot. The many decades of leaf litter and vegetation had woken up as a result of the damp conditions. Many of these trees are hundreds of years old.
Eventually we arrived at the main event. Old Knobbley is a tree right in the heart of the woods and known by everyone in the area (apart from me it would seem). The tree is estimated as being around 800 years old. It has its own website, social media presence and unofficial biographer. Folklore talks of local women, fleeing the henchmen of the self-declared Witchfinder General, Matthew Hopkins, and seeking refuge in its branches. Hopkins lived in Manningtree and is understood to have ‘tried’ and murdered dozens, maybe hundreds, of women and girls during the 1640s after declaring them witches.
It is a fact that this tree is something special. You approach it with awe and a sense of wonder. If only it could talk. It looks very old, sprawled, hunched and struggling to remain upright. But I guess you would if you were that old. This ancient oak was a mere sapling when the Magna Carta was first drawn up.
The Bald Birder 