Victim of the Storms

For one reason or another I hadn't taken mutt for a walk in our local park since Thursday last week, and so I had quite a surprise when I set foot through the gate again yesterday. Between the two visits, we had had yet another of the 'confused' Gulf Stream storms, this one striking during the early hours of Saturday morning.
Where once a majestic beech tree had stood guard over the emerging Lords and Ladies around its base, there was instead a wind-cleared vista over scraped bare earth.
The Peyps Walk tree had become a victim of the storms.

The clear-up process was well under way by yesterday but it was obvious there was more to why this naturally shallow-rooted beech had succumbed.

It wouldn't take a genius to work out that the tree had been suffering with disease, and having chatted to the estate workers, it appears this towering 100 year-old had already been given the green spot of condemnation. Sad as it is, these things happen when specimens get to the end of their life. However, even during the lying in state, it was able to put on one last unusual display.

Each severed limb revealed a beautiful design, as if it had been tattooed, and with every one different.
Ink blot interpretation of these disease stains was about to come into play.

Could it be a pansy?... A butterfly?...

...wait a minute, is this possibly the face of a bulldog?

...and this, a border collie pup?

Whatever your interpretation, what I actually see is a changing landscape and the prospect of a new sapling filling the gap.

It isn't always bad.