My cousin Triona reminded me that yesterday was National Tree Day (incidently, Triona is a terrific tree painter). This is a day when primary school students around the country put their usual classroom studies to one side to celebrate trees. This annual event encourages children to experience and appreciate the natural world around them. A fantastic initiative.

We tend to overlook the importance of trees. Of course we love their majestic serenity and delight in their seasonal displays. But they are so much more than that. They work so hard for us. You could call them mother nature’s batteries- harvesting and storing energy from the sun. We in turn can use this energy to our advantage by burning the wood as fuel, by building things and even by eating it – more commonly fruit but in some cases leaves and even sap.

You could also call them mother nature’s lungs. Not only is each leaf a highly effective solar collector they also purify our air by absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere and releasing O2. As modern day living produces ever more harmful levels of CO2, logic would prevail that we plant more trees….but I promised I wouldn’t preach….