AHPP

I once did a day near Watford for a bunch of moderately horrible gypsies. Loads of bits here and there around a forty acre woodland. The penultimate tree was, "Lovely oak tree. Just a fell. Might need a branch off first." It was apparently quite a away across the site so I assembled the bare minimum of climbing gear and saw, fuel, oil, wedges, axe etc. "Would you like some help carrying that?" "Yes, please." Orders were barked and five kids descended on my chattels. We started walking and after about ninety seconds we were all lost, separately, and my stuff was god knows where. My mood was short of ebullient. It was 15:00 in January, I'd been doing a load of fiddly bollocks with woolly specs all day and I was fed up with listening to pikey lardarses shout at each other. We found the tree. It was an utterly buggered oak, four foot DBH, on the boundary of a small domestic garden, crown (dead as) weighted towards said garden and the house at the end of it. The bottom was goosed so I spiked up forty feet, set my climbing rope as a pull rope and dropped back to five feet below the crown break, where the wood was OK. Still not good but OK. I wedged the crown over while some mercenary fat bastard shouted at the aforementioned kids to yank the rope. The woodland owner turned up on a quad bike and yanked it a bit harder and, eventually, over it went. The right way, thank christ. This was five or six years ago and I can't recall doing a sketchier fell since, nor one so wretched: double bar on spikes with no mainline, then hitting the sort of wedges that sink your heart when they sound back hard and don't move a micron. Stacking a staging of logs for the high feller is a neat trick btw. I'd have probably stood on the machine grab.

I have a draft set of terms for if I ever end up doing a significant amount of end client work. They include a finder's fee for animal shit (as well as loads of other useful things like instructions to not build new sheds underneath already quoted trees). People will be eating their pets soon anyway. Won't be a problem.

Got a link or a better picture?

As it happens, Jack, I’m largely with you. People can do what they want with their property, just as I can think they’re tasteless cretins. It’s a great system. There’s an argument for professionalism, refusing to carry out work to a crass specification for the sake of your own reputation (and soul), but at this stage of humanity I can’t blame you for sifting through the wreckage and looting the Rolexes off loose arms. What an absolute mess of a species.

What a diverse industry we’re in. My job is to not ruin gardens.

Very uncommon here (UK). There usually aren’t the other trees or whatever nearby to set it up or it isn’t worth setting it up.

A joke at john87’s expense.

I follow. Makes you wonder how many more would come to pick their own if you were near Blaydon or somewhere.

That's mad. Average of £64.29 a tree and you're hardly convenient to get to. The economics your side of the equation notwithstanding, how are people mental enough to pay that?

A mate lived in San Diego, in a neighbourhood of haves but close to a neighbourhood of have nots. He couldn't stand the divide and how out-of-sight, out-of-mind they were. He was meant to be there for a year but ended up moving to Antarctica after six months.

Do you mean wrap the stone up like a loose cigar?

Bit of salmon. Skin side down in a hot pan, cover, cook until burnt, heat off, flip, butter and thyme in, cover for as long as you dare.

Do you reeve often?

400 years ago was about when people here started saying, "**************** this. Let's go somewhere with less bullshit."

California is a microcosm of the country. Whole thing ruined in 400 years. Took us way longer here.

Someone could hang themselves on that. You have no idea who you’re dealing with.

No. It's still 4500 pretty empty words that explain not a lot.

BILL STICKERS WILL BE PROSECUTED BILL STICKERS IS AN INNOCENT MAN etc

I love your empirical approaches to work. Very useful. Also reminds me of the bit in DS9 where the Cardassians' record keeping is compared to the Nazis'.

I vowed to never again visit the Roaches (excellent gritstone crag in the Staffordshire moorlands) when I last went and found a massive banner stretched over a boulder, warning me about some unnecessary bollocks. That and the signs. **************** off. If you don't know where the upper tier or the fourth cloud is, you ask a fellow climber and make a friend. Or you get lost and have to work it out. Miserable sanitisation. Get in the sea.

I think rugby union players should wear American football gear. I don't really. Apologies if that made you feel as queasy reading it as it did me writing it.

But what about the domestication cutting both ways? How have humans become slaves to heathland? I understand the stuff about young growth being more nutritious for domesticated grazing animals but we're all accounts executives with digital watches these days. Food comes from the shop and whether it's self-maintaining heathland, or aspiring or final woodland, you can't easily put a Starbucks on it so it doesn't really matter.

I thought that article was dreadfully written and never really got round to the point the title suggested it would make. Can anyone summarise it please.

Good story. I'm also hugely amused by your username and the idea that as well as being a tree bloke, you keep an eye on international monkey affairs.