Of late the seasons have been stoking my trust issues. As someone who works outside I know that climatically the south east of England is not very rainy, even in Winter (check it out compared to parts of Europe we associate with better weather: we are grey, yes, rainy, no). I often tell people I don’t get rained on much while out looking at trees. This winter has been different, it has let me down. It has felt very rainy, or even snowy, though the statistics suggest it didn’t deviate much from the average. Perhaps there was more rain in work hours than usual, or perhaps I just tried to go Tree surveying at the wrong times.

Now spring is here, or is it? Is it summer? Is it winter? Can we trust the sun to stay? With such a changeable spring only the most naive of people would trust the weather at this point. If the weather were behind me I’d keep looking round. If it were round the corner I’d put a CCTV camera on it, just to be sure.

It’s easy to speak lightly about it now, but as I get older and know myself better I realise my mood is affected by the weather. Perhaps my dislike of offices that led me to tree work in the first place is because I am sensitive to how much light I get. It’s difficult to be scientific about it, but I often feel better when the sun is out. I love to see the leaves bursting out all around, and suddenly remember why I work with trees.

Today I sat out in the park for lunch and looked up at a hornbeam spreading over me, its leaves fully out at last. If it rains I can now take shelter. I’ve spent so much time indoors over the winter that I feel I have to re-establish my relationship with the trees, even though it wasn’t them that let me down. The trees are more trustworthy than the weather, and I’m sure we’ll soon get used to each other again. We just need to spend a bit more time together.