Thixendale ...ashes to ashes.. in the Yorkshire Wolds.

Sketchbook pen and ink with ink wash. Click image to enlarge.

 

It seemed a nice idea, latish in the afternoon, 

After sketching of the sycamores over at Burdale

(  Hockney, misnamed them as Thixendale sycamores ),

 To visit one of my favourite small dew ponds in Fother Dale, 

Near Thixendale village.

I arrived to see that my usual parking spot, on the verge, near the pond had been churned up with deep rutted, caterpillar tracks. I managed to park just clear of the narrow road and went to stand by the barbed wired fence, examining the clear water of the pond I could see water boatmen and black diving beetles active in the sun, I saw a newt rise, gulp, and descend, disappearing to hide among the pond plants. Frogspawn was also present visible on the surface and no doubt strands of toad spawn would also be there.  Then I heard voices. Up the road a little way, were three men talking, standing by a long trailer which turned out to have been used to transport the caterpillar tracked vehicle. Had a brief chat with them before going back to the car. They were tree surgeons and a local farmer. In Long Dale just the other side of the hedge, I could now see a small mountain of tangled branches and twigs. Another ASH had succumbed to die back disease. I wandered back to the car and saw, in the mangled hawthorn hedge, the cut down ash trunk, perhaps four feet across, bare, exposed, yet with no sign of desease. I tried to count the rings stopping at two hundred...so sad. Further along the hedge towards the pond I saw two more decapitated trunks, these were indeed diseased, their centres almost entirely rotted away. So I guess it needed doing. The road is adjacent and close enough that the likelihood of an accident was all too apparent.  I decided to drive up towards Gills and draw this view from the perimeter of the field, which was full of rapeseed plants just beginning to form clusters of yellow flower heads and still rather short in height this early. From here, standing at the perimeter fence and looking down I could see the embryonic bright green hawthorn hedge near the pond, behind it the venerable ASH a crumpled entanglement of peers. Their joint mycelium proving not strong enough for their final battle. I decided to use a simple ink wash rather than add colour as it seemed fitting for the occasion. I looked at my watch, it was too late to visit the Robert Fuller Gallery and in any case I needed to give George his dinner.

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