Another bloody tree to sort out!

 Today was the day that the National Grid contractors finally arrived to clear the trees that are too close to our electricity supply.

We had been pre-warned that our supply would be interrupted, so 30% filled a flask with boiling water and I brought our camping stove in from the shed. 

A cheerful chap from National Grid turned up around nine o'clock and was very flexible about the time he turned the power off, especially after 30% offered to put the kettle on an make him a cup of tea. The tree felling contractors arrived a while later and we were plunged into the dark ages at around half past nine.

There were three trees that needed attention. A hawthorn up in the orchard needed to be trimmed to hedge height and a Norway Spruce, also growing in the orchard,  was to be felled. The final task was to trim a conifer in the corner of the lawn at the rear of the cottage. Our power supply runs through the crown of this tree and it needed to be pruned to provide one meter clearance from the cable.

The work took about four hours and the Arboriculturist left in the early afternoon. The National Grid chaps returned around half pst three to restore our power and we now have modern conveniences restored.

It is fair to say that we did very little today, other than stay in the lounge and keep the log burner going. I did start one of my Christmas books,* but have little else to report.

I did get some very good advice from the Arboriculturist. He took a look at the stump from the conifer that came down in Storm Darragh and suggested that we hire a stump grinder to deal with the stump. He even brought out his large chainsaw to further trim the stump, so that grinding it down would be feasible.

At the end of today I have yet another tree to convert to firewood. I'm not really looking forward to that, but at least it is only half the size of the last one.

As for stump grinding ... I can't wait, it looks brilliant!

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* Bob Mortimer's Hotel Avocado