The daily commute had blinded me to the beauty on my doorstep

In the latest of his reflections about place and pathway, Will Gore looks with new eyes on a towering copper beech and recalls the death of a neighbour

Will Gore noticed the beauty of the copper beech tree on his morning commute (iStock)

Until June of this year I was your bog-standard commuter. I left my house at the same time each day (usually a few minutes later than I should have done), caught the same train from my provincial town to London, and returned home every evening by the same route.

I made those journeys five days a week for eleven and a half years, looking at the same sights as I ran down the hill to catch the 7.26 (and as I trudged up it 12 or 13 hours later); and glimpsing the same fields and buildings from the train window. Seasons came and went but the routine rarely altered.

It’s remarkable what you no longer really see when you get into a pattern like this.