charles barrow's writing

The Hardy Tree can be found in the Old St. Pancras Churchyard in London. It is an Ash tree (Fraxinus Excelsior). It is named for the author Thomas Hardy. Before he gained fame as a novelist he worked as a trainee architect and the task fell to him, in 1865, to relocate the tombs and bodies in this churchyard because the expanding railways needed the land. He re-arranged the headstones around the ash tree as you see them in this photo. Old St. Pancras Churchyard also features in the Charles Dickens novel Tale of Two Cities, written in 1859. Photo is the author's own.

I just bought a new pencil. It's an Ash twig with graphite running through its centre. Marketed as a 'Scribbling Stick' I chose it from a market stall selling products made from coppiced woodland timber by a company called Native and Traditional   www.wight-crafts.com I say I chose the pencil. I had real trouble choosing from a variety of differently sized and shaped, Cherry, Juniper and Oak wood Scribbling Sticks and in the end I think the pencil chose me, in a Harry Potter Sorting Hat kind of a way.