Hourglass formed from tree trunks

I went up to the allotment again last night, though the padlock's been on since March and I had to climb the fence like a burglar. The two ashes Dad planted by the water butt have gone bare at the top, their thin roots reaching up out of the soil as if they're trying to get back into the sky. I stood there with the torch and remembered him saying a tree is a clock that forgets to run out. I always took it for one of his jokes.

The council wants the plot cleared by autumn. The man from the housing trust showed me the plans on a tablet, all grey boxes, and asked whether anything there was worth keeping. I said the trees. He said he meant the sheds. I asked for cuttings anyway, and he looked at me as if I'd asked for the bricks off the chimney.

So I've been carrying them home in a carrier bag, twenty-odd whips wrapped in wet newspaper, and they're standing in jam jars along the windowsill where the streetlight comes in orange through the blind. Most will die. That's cuttings for you. But a few have pushed out pale green buds down by the wood, and in May I'm planting those in your garden in Leeds, where the boys can climb them when they're bigger.

Come down at Easter. Bring the boys. I'll show you the jars.