Cockermouth has a lovely wide Georgian main street lined with an avenue of pollarded elms. These trees are stark in winter but come the spring ... ah spring! It's hard to imagine at the moment with the cold and frost and ice... they will sprout new lush green and give us all hope of better things to come.
But what is this I see? One of the trees is all wrapped up in a neatly fitted patchwork quilt. That's novel. It's outside our newly located health food shop. I went inside it's newly refurbished interior to find out more.
Ah, now I see. It is a year since the disastrous floods hit the town. The force of the water stoved in the window of the wool shop and distributed the contents of the shop all over the place. It unravelled everywhere. Wherever you looked there was wool. It defied the laws of physics that a little shop could contain so much wool.
Now, as a celebration of our recovery, Cathy Newbury has made it into a novel project. She has gathered in every bit left when the water subsided and has given a whole new meaning to recycling. She has used it as a community project teaching people to knit. And knit they have! Squares and multi-coloured squares have been sewn together round the tree outside the old wool shop and on the other one outside the premised to which they have relocated. The tree cosy wraps the tree to the height the flood water came as a grim reminder giving us all a reason to rejoice in the miraculous regeneration of our town which is looking so good this Christmas.
It gives a whole new meaning to tree hugging.
