This weekend, as promised, we gathered with our friends on the field and, to strains of “I’m a lumberjack and I’m okay…“, set about cutting back all the trees around our field. Curtis, Dee, Lynn and Alan all came along armed with ladders, saws and secateurs, prepared for a day’s hard work in the garden – and they certainly didn’t disappoint.

While Curtis and Joe started work on the field, I helped Alan with an other “quick” job – changing the inner tube in the tyre of our wheelbarrow. Working in the garden has been a less-than ideal experience for a long time since the wheelbarrow suffered a puncture, so we were delighted to hear that Alan had managed to find a replacement inner tube. It took a good 20 minutes of poking, pulling, pushing, huffing and puffing, but the tyre eventually came loose and the new inner tube was fitted. At last – a wheelbarrow with a wheel that turns! Hurrah

With the tyre trauma behind us, everyone congregated on the field and set about attacking the trees. At the risk of sounding a bit Winston Churchill, never have so many branches been cut by so few. We sawed, snipped, chopped, pulled, cut, swore, tugged, climbed, and snapped our way through trees and branches galore and lunchtime arrived before we knew it. And what a perfect lunch it was – cold beer and bacon butties, courtesy of Rosie & Molly. Just what we needed!

Fully refreshed, we got back into it, with the men climbing the ladders to tackle the big trees and the ladies and kids trimming the smaller fruit trees and brambles. Surprisingly, even though we chaps often found ourselves rather precariously-balanced at the top of tall ladders, there was only one minor injury. Of course I had to be the victim. I had chopped though a huge branch from a tree at the corner of the field. The branch (well, I call it a branch, it was more like a tree) fell straight down in front of me, whipping my head and face as is fell past. I kept hold of the ladder and even managed not to swear! Unfortunately, not having sufficient hair to hide the cuts on my head, I now look like some kind of Harry Potter tribute.

We even managed to avoid breaking the telephone cables, around which the trees had grown over the last few years. There was one close call, with Curtis and myself working the saw and Dee poised on the ground to guide the branch to safety. Unfortunately the branch got hooked on the cables, resulting in a few brief seconds of panic – “Woah! Look out! Grab it! Get out the way! Help!” – before we managed to free the offending article while Dee dived for cover. Luckily no damage done! *phew*

Although the black clouds kept threatening to bring an early end to the proceedings, the day remained dry and really quite lovely. Were it not for the extreme effort required to cut through the branches with our rusty saws, it would have been quite pleasant up in the trees, enjoying the view out over lake and the apple trees!

We were kept well fed and watered thanks to regular tea, coffee and cake supplies by the girls and progress was very impressive. But as the bonfire pile grew higher and higher, so our muscles became more and more tired, until, at around 4.30pm, we finally downed tools and called it a day. Everyone had worked their socks off, and we had broken the back of the work with only one side of the field remaining. It had been a hard day’s work, but we were all very pleased with the progress we had made, and the field looked so different once we could see the horizon at last! After a final tea break, where Lynn amused us all by inventing the “sniccup”, the workers returned home to freshen up, before coming back for a thank-you supper and drinks.

It was a lovely end to a long, hard day’s work, but, even through all the bumps, scratches, aches and pains, we all felt good about our efforts. Once again we find ourselves feeling humbled by the generosity of our friends. It had been an epic day of really hard work from everyone, but seeing our friends and family all working together and having fun made it all worth it.