We Have a View!

Our unit is surrounded by views - of the hills, the estuary, trees and houses. I tend to forget though, as many of them you can't actually see from inside the house itself. Our back yard is framed by mature camellia trees almost all the way around, which makes for a lovely secluded backyard, and splashes of colour throughout winter. But it does mean you forget how high we are here, perched just down the side of the ridge of a hill.

We recently had a tree break in the back yard. It's a rather lovely little tree, so I'm quite gutted. It just seems to have grown more than it can hold upright - I'd thought for awhile that it seemed to be getting lower (I'd bang my head on branches and find myself wondering if they had always been that low). Then one day I was out talking to the neighbour and she asked what was wrong with our tree - pointing to a branch that was very definitely on a lean. Yup, sure enough, it had split...the next morning another larger branch was also split, and there were branches over the fence, the shed, and the route to the compost bin. We had to call in the landlord with a chainsaw. He left as much of the tree as he could, but I fear we are now on borrowed time. This is the only tree in the yard that gives daytime shade during summer, so I am lamenting its demise for more than just sympathetic reasons. I am hoping it will suprise us all and live for many more years yet!

The upside is that we have discovered a view that we didn't realise we had. It is quite hard to see in the photos (I'm blaming trouble with lighting on that), but we can now see all the way out across to the next ridgeline, including a nice upright poplar tree. We are still getting used to our tree being missing, but are definitely enjoying the view when we walk into the bedroom. Views, I have realised, are quite important to me. I like to look at something restful. I enjoy sitting in our lounge so much here because my chair faces out through the big window, out across our fence with its banksia rose, across to a higher ridgeline with a group of norfolk pines.

Amy

Monday, 2nd May, 2011