Casualty

At the end of May, one of the beautiful, mature trees alongside the drive leading to Saltaire's URC church succumbed to the drought. Its trunk suddenly sheered in half and a large portion of the tree fell across the drive, thankfully injuring no-one and damaging nothing, as far as I'm aware. (See HERE) Since then it has been tidied up and the trunk cut into logs. I believe experts have also assessed the others in the vicinity. 

From the moment the lockdown was ordered in the UK, the weather turned dry, sunny and warm. I dread to think how depressed we'd all have been if it had happened at the end of autumn and we'd had to survive in lockdown in the dark and cold of winter. As it was, at least we were mostly able to enjoy the sunshine. We had the sunniest and driest spring ever recorded, strangely coming after the wettest February on record. It is all, apparently, to do with the jet-stream. Climate change and the warming of the Arctic region is causing it to 'stall' for long periods, stuck either to the south of us - bringing wet Atlantic low pressure systems, or to the north, bringing high pressure in from the Continent. Such extremes are unprecedented and an alarming wake-up call. If only governments would listen... I fear we will see many worse casualties than this Saltaire tree in the future.