Epping Forest

I live pretty close to the Epping Forest in Essex and the changing of the seasons in the forest, particularly at year-end when nature is at its mellowest, has always been a fascinating phenomenon to me. My favourite season of the year happens to be the autumn. The tranquillity of autumn with its hint of the approaching bleakness of winter cannot be matched, for somebody of my disposition, by the vigour and exuberance of spring, - even with its promise of the glories of summer yet to come. I enjoy the gentler pace of life that is engendered by the rapidly shortening days of autumn and I warm to the thrill and anticipation of Christmas that the onset of autumn brings. But above all autumn enchants me with its brilliant display of colours as the trees prepare to shed their leaves. I can think of nothing more enchanting than a gentle drive along the Epping Road in early November soaking in the grandeur of trees bedecked in the hues of autumn. The red and gold of autumn leaves never fails to fascinate me even though I scarcely have the artistic sensibilities that one surely needs to appreciate such splendour of nature. And nature at its most splendid had been just as evident this last autumn in the Epping Forest as ever. However, last autumn, as though in an attempt to entice me away from my beloved Epping Forest, circumstances combined to present to me an altogether different autumnal scene which appeared to rival, if not surpass, that of the Epping Forest. I was in Canada last October and saw for the first time, in several years, the amazing variety of colours that autumn brings to the forests of North America. Here the trees are adorned not simply with reds and golds but also with shades of purple, orange and blue, - indeed all the colours, virtually, of the rainbow except, of course, green, although that is still to be seen on the evergreens. Faced with this extravaganza of myriad colours, I had to concede, much to my chagrin, that the Epping Forest had a worthy rival after all in the Canadian forests. Driving at autumn time along Canadian freeways, which seemed unfailingly to be flanked by forests, it was impossible not to be awestruck by the blaze of colours that stretched for miles on either side. Nevertheless, as someone whose aesthetic sense is lamentably shallow, the breathtaking beauty of the Canadian forests only served to remind me absurdly of the title of the famous song from the musical “West Side Story”, “Everything big in America”, and it occurred to me that like most things in North America, nature’s display of autumn beauty was on a much grander scale there than anywhere in the Epping Forest. Not that it in any way diminished my affection for the Epping Forest. The grandeur of the Canadian forests may have turned my head momentarily but I was always going to return to the charms of the Epping Forest rather like a man who returns ultimately to his first love. For the Epping Forest doesn’t just enchant in the autumn, in the winter too it has an allure that is irresistible. I took the opportunity to drive through the forest this winter during a particularly cold spell, - not long after a heavy fall of snow. As often happens in the days that follow a heavy snowfall, the landscape was still covered in snow but the road had mercifully been cleared so that I wasn’t beset by my usual anxiety about driving on snow-covered roads. On either side of the road, the trees, which had long since lost their red and gold of autumn and had stood bare in early winter, were now a frosty white, - their snow-covered branches strangely florescent in the gloom of mid-winter. Further into the forest, the forest floor that had once been strewn with the leaves of autumn was now resplendent in a blanket of snow. Under a grey winter sky, the snow on the ground had acquired its characteristic strip-light effect which in urban streets lights up the faces of passers-by and which here in the emptiness of the wild illuminated the forest in a cold white light. In the subdued light of a winter afternoon, the forest seemed to exude, to a town person such as myself at any rate, an inexplicable air of almost transcendental calm and quietude. Those attuned to the ways of nature might attribute it simply to the oft-talked-about winter absence of birdsong. Others with a more poetic imagination might ascribe it to winter’s eternal magic. I am scarcely poetic and seldom rise above the mundane. But that afternoon, even I recognised something in the beauty of the forest’s winter scene that was wondrous and quite sublime.