Friday

Good lunchtime peeps,

I am trying to train Jersey unsafeguarding partnership to stop stalking my blog at night, but it isn't working. They and their pals are hovering ominously, likely to try to attack again.

I came home for lunch to get out of the bitter wind and imbibe something warm.

Yesterday's snow didn't come to much, and I was up early to unload Max and defrost him. That all went pretty well.

I set off in good time and managed to get a parking space at work. We were working on the estate to catch up the work we were rained off.

The wind was so bitter it was torture, but we worked well. The lads went to get shrubs while I dug out some new borders that had been the ratty ends of grass lawns.

Then we planted the shrubs and also re-turfed another ratty area.
It was all going well but I snapped an edging iron, the handle had perished a bit and it gave way. Not too serious but my mate had only recently sharpened it.

Anyway, as we plodded peacefully with our work and a bit of hot chocolate to keep us going, a gent was walking through the footpath with his dog and he stopped to talk to us,
He told us that one of the trees by the path was dead, you wouldn't have noticed it while all the trees were dormant, but he said it got on his nerves.

I walked over to the trees and looked at the one he indicated, I pulled a small branch and it snapped, dead, and the next one, I pushed the tree gently to see how easy it would be to get out, and there was a loud SNAP and the tree went over. So I took the tree over to the man
'There, it won't get on your nerves any more!'
The lads were laughing 'That's not the first thing she's broken today!'

There is a little bit of stump that I will have to deal with before we start the mowing again. I had no intention of felling a tree with one hand today, it just happened.

Anyway, the gent was perfectly happy with us tree fellers, or two fellers and one girl, and he told us he was an ex-farmer and that he got up at 6am every day and washed in cold water. And off he went.

We continued to work, it was bin day, so as well as the wind being bitter, it was attacking the bins and so there were bins and rubbish going everywhere, so me and the lad kept chasing rubbish while the older team mate leaned on the hoe and laughed.

It was a half day so we finished at lunchtime.

As I drove away I spotted the old farmer who had hated the dead tree, only he had fallen over on the lower footpath while trying to pick up windblown rubbish, and he couldn't get up!

I whacked Max into neutral and hazards on and I ran to help him.

He is a heavyset ex-farmer with a dodgy knee so it is a good thing that someone else happened along because it took the two of us some minutes to get him back on his feet. Poor man, he was shaken but unhurt, and by the time he was on his feet, more people had arrived, locals who knew him, so I left him in their capable hands. By the time that was done, my workmate had pulled up behind Max in the works van, looking mightily puzzled about Maxie sitting alone with his hazards on.

'What's she broken now?'

I told him what happened.

Here I am home, I had hot tea and some quorn cottage pie for lunch and I am just going over to finish the lockup now.

The windy is icy and very strong but no rain or snow is falling at the moment.