TIMBERRRR!

Both Mr. HCB and I like to decide the night before what we are aiming to do the next day and last night was no exception.  There is still a lot of work to do outside our fence to clear away the Council-owned ivy, hedging and trees, so as it wasn’t due to be too hot this morning, we thought we would get out there early and start work.

We were well into our stride just after 8.30 a.m. and Mr. HCB had taken the large step ladder out so that he could get up and saw branches off the various trees that were overhanging our garden.  Some of these are from damson trees, but we get fed up with the damsons dropping into our garden and as they are quite near a busy road, and are probably polluted, we don’t want to eat them but they do make rather a mess when they drop. 

Mr. HCB sawed and I chopped, so between us, as a team, we did a huge amount of work and it certainly looks much better now.  Whilst we were sawing, our next-door neighbour, Lynn, came round to see what we were up to - and was amazed at how much we had done.  We might be older and some might think past it more mature, but we can still work hard and it is very satisfying to know that you have done the work yourself.  It was almost 11.30 by this time, and Lynn could obviously see how much we had done and how tired we looked, so she asked if we would like her to make us a sausage sandwich for our lunch - well, that was an offer we couldn’t refuse!  

Someone remarked the other day that Mr. HCB had the wrong shirt on to be a lumberjack, so for that particular person, he made sure he had his check shirt on today!

The work today wasn’t quite as hard as trying to get the huge root of the Weigela out that I mentioned last week and you might like to know that I managed to persuade Mr. HCB to get someone in to do that particular job.  After he came indoors  one day last week, having been working for a couple of hours, he looked absolutely beaten so I said I thought we should get someone to do it for us and Mr. HCB agreed, without a fight.  I rang the man who is due to be erecting our fence at the end of the month, to ask if he knew of anyone who could help us and he said that he would send his son round to do it for us;  so, on the hottest day, last Thursday, Jaidan arrived.  A strapping 20-year-old, standing just over 6 feet tall, Jaidan soon got on with the job and the root was duly removed.  We paid him well and everyone was happy.

We cleared up and not long after we got back round to our house today, we were sitting having a cup of coffee, when Lynn appeared with the gold cup and presented us with it saying it was for the hardest working neighbours!  She is so kind to us.  About 15 minutes later she appeared with the sausage sandwiches and boy, did they go down well - you can tell by Mr. HCB’s face that he was delighted!

So now we are waiting for friends we haven't seen for sometime, to visit for a physically distanced cup of coffee in the garden - we will be glad to sit down and chat after all that hard work.  Having worked in the green gym today, we won’t need to go walking or to any other gym!

“Sometimes there's not a better way; 
     sometimes there's only the hard way.” 
Mary E. Pearson