This is the fifth day the bra has been in the tree. It flutters in the wind like a windsock – a windbra no less. If it were white, black, or a bright colour, maybe someone other than us would have spotted it by now. But it is camouflaged, buff-coloured so that it blends in with the pale skeletal branches of a tree still to bloom. Nevertheless, you’d think the neighbours whose garden the bra tree is in would have noticed it by now.
Why is there a bra in a tree? It’s been a breezy few days. Perhaps mischievous, gusty fingers plucked it from a washing line and hid it there? Or maybe it’s evidence of a raucous party? This is a tiny Somerset village. Raucous is somebody clinking wine glasses outside after 22:00 on a Saturday. The idea of revellers discarding bras would cause heart failure among half the villagers.
The mystery of the bra trees
Bra trees aren’t that unusual. We’ve encountered one ourselves before, in the middle of nowhere in Arrábida Natural Park in Portugal. There were no roads leading to the tree, meaning those who left their bras (and boots) across its branches made the effort of hiking there to do so. Which is strange in itself.
Search Google and you’ll find a number of reasons for bra trees. The most common relates to skiing resorts, where they are also known as panty trees. Reason for throwing underwear into trees include, it registers a ‘romantic liaison;’ it’s part of a tradition of stripping off at the end of the skiing season; and it adds quirky fun to chairlift rides.
In a Guardian article, a bra tree in Australia was to honour a teacher who’d died.
After we saw the bra tree in Portugal, I asked on the socials what it was all about. The only replies were theories – that it was some student sort of end-of-term tradition, or to mark the completion of a long hike. But they were all guesses. There were also local stories about a human-eating alien there who lived in tunnels below the ground. But that’s highly improbable.
One mystery resolved
I already know answer to the mystery of the Somerset bra tree. Five days ago, as we watched a woodpecker peck at one of the birdfeeders in our garden, the colourful bird was disturbed when our neighbours’ rotary washing line drifted past the top of the fence, as if it had come alive and was moving around by its own volition. What we couldn’t see below the line of the fence was the patriarch of the household carrying it from one part of the garden to a higher spot (the garden is the size of a small park) which was still lit up by the evening sun. It was only afterwards that Andy and I noticed one of their trees had become a bra tree. The garment had obviously snagged as the washing line was carried past it.
Now we are in a quandary. The bra remains in the tree, its disappearance still not registered by its owner. The bigger mystery is how nobody in the household has spotted it wafting about in a small tree in their garden when we see it every time we look out our bedroom, kitchen, and living room windows.
Of course, we could just pop next door and ask if anyone has lost a bra as there’s one flapping about in one of their trees. But that feels oddly personal, intrusive.
Plus, we’re enjoying seeing how many days the bra can notch up in its draughty new home.
