Thinking underneath a chestnut.
Autumn approaches. Abney Park’s chestnut trees start to wear yellow, though it is tricky to tell if this might not be for another reason. The leaves are dotty as if frequented by bugs or fungus. The musky-sweet smell of fallen leaves comes with childhood memories. A street where I grew up is lined for a mile with chestnuts, and I’d walk that street twice a week over years. The rainfall today adds to the atmosphere. White cloud cover encourages to turn towards the ground.
Since I moved here, I have been perplexed by the number of cafés on Church Street N16. I ought to count how many cafés there actually are. One recently shut on the corner of Albion Road. A bakery chain opened a place around the same time, opposite another café where I just bought takeaway breakfast. The café’s walls covered with light-grey semi-skimmed milk drink packaging. Opposite the counter, a pleasing variety of community activity posters. The lady and I exchange a thank you. This place holds memories of my mum. She loved the coffee here, London has the best coffee anyway, she said. She adores the UK from afar.
Today, the coffee is bad. I have no fine palate for coffee, but my tastebuds signal something between sour and bitter, which the sweet muffin makes up for. A dog tried to snatch that earlier.
Abney Park is a place that can take me out of London’s rush. I melt, I dwell in this type of man-made forest, not artificial but hardly wild either. Damp, reminiscent of castles I explored as a child. Cellars with invisible moss on rock walls.
And so underneath the chestnut I think about the café. The chain bakery opposite was busier than I wish to admit. The coffee seems to say, help me, but it is what sparkles that turns heads.
Society slowly cultivates chains and before you know it, family-sustaining places make way for brands whose owners might never set foot in the property. Spirit splits from place.
You know, Monopoly is only one half of the original game. Competition needs cooperation. Evolution is as much about the fittest individual as the fittest group. I couldn’t tell them apart. What is fit anyway?
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For us nerds specifically, I was sitting under the Horse Chestnut Aesculus hippocastanum, introduced from the region of Albania, Bulgaria, Greece and Macedonia into Britain at the beginning of the 17th century. The larvae of the horse chestnut leaf miner eats their way through the leaves, first recorded in 1980s. “Once the larvae start feeding on the tissue to create mines, the leaves show whitish pathes, the translucent tunnels clearly visible. With each cycle of the moth, the leaves can become more fully covered in mines. The blotches turn brown, starting in the lower canpy of the tree, moving upwards, until the whole tree appears sombre and autumnal. The darkening of the canopy can happen as early as August, depending on the severity of the infection. Eventually the leaves shrivel, die and drop off. The infestation is not thought to damage the trees significantly” though the long-term effects of repeated infestations are unclear. Or early discoloration could be a fungus called Phyllosticta paviae: “the patches are reddish-brown, but they often have a yellow margin aroud parts of them. It is considered unsightly but harmless to the tree.” (quotes from Bettina Metcalfe, London Natural History Society, August 2025, no.278)
In case you were wondering.