Sunday Writing Prompt “Peace of Mind”

For this prompt, we are asked to recall a place, object, or being that brings us peace of mind.
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I’ve borrowed the photo from the prompt as this is so like Our Tree.

When Hubby and I first got together, we often went out to the New Forest on a Sunday with Kizzy, my GSD.
This particular day, we parked up and walked into the woods for about a mile.
We came across an old tree, we believe it was an elm, and stopped to look at it.
Some branches were sweeping the ground, others were snapped off completely, the bark knotted and gnarled. One branch had been struck by lightning and broken off leaving just a stub on the trunk. Various knots took on shapes like a witch’s face or a new born babe, and one looked like an angel, but the tree had character and had withstood the elements over the years.

We adopted this tree as ‘ours’.
Under its canopy we found peace and a means to unwind. I slept on a bed of leaves whilst Hubby sat on a large trunk of another, lost in his own thoughts. Whatever stresses we’d had at the beginning of our walk were gone once we were in our special place. It was rare we would see anyone this far in, which made it even more private and personal.
We would take decorations at Christmas, placing them in the highest branches we could reach, then retrieve them in the New Year.
Even on the coldest day the tree would feel warm to touch, and one day, we shared it with my sister and her husband. They didn’t see what we did, nor did they understand why this tree was so important to us. We never took anyone else there.
We buried two bottles with messages in its roots, and wonder if they are still there, or if the tree itself is still standing.  We like to think so, as we believed that like us, this tree has withstood the knocks of time and as long as it survived, we would be together.