I always loved climbing trees as a youngster, something that went on long after I should have been practising cool, experimenting with make-up etc. More recently I scaled our huge and ancient pear tree at the previous, previous house to prune it back, but I can't quite imagine doing that now - a few years on, due to having done far too much heavy work on the last house project.
At our now-house, there is a beautiful pine tree which shades us in summer, provides bird-shelter and give us cones for fire lighting; however it is/was extremely tall and during gales would thrash and bend alarmingly, and as the house would be a direct hit I thought it was time to invite in a tree specialist. Also, our house insurance guy had shrugged at my mention of the tree even though we had bought extra insurance to cover any eventual tree-house-debacle. 'It is your responsibility to manage the tree, madame'. So . . . not exactly sure what the extra house insurance was for . . .
The tree-guy arrived yesterday morning, and after moving his van in, and partaking of a coffee, he donned a harness and zipped up the tree as agile as a marmoset. We'd had a quick word about not lopping the top off as if Goliath had done a touch of strimming, and he'd said, 'of course, Madame, I will sculpt it so it looks natural', and he did, swinging in circles from the already sawn top section grasping the chain saw and lopping as he went.
An hour later he was clearing up the branches, the birds had returned to scoff sunflower seeds and it was as if nothing had happened except the tree is now five meters shorter.
