The Drunken Boat

Knowing that our planning application and subsequent appeal would take forever we made busy with getting to grips with our site.

Most of the plot being the ubiquitous blackthorn and all very tall and thin we’ve spent a happy (?) winter with hand saws and loppers slowly taking out the thorny things and chopping them up. As the time has gone on we have got little glimpses of the benefits of the work – for the first time we’ve got birds coming down onto the site, we can actually look up through a gap in the trees and see the sky and even the local foxes and rabbits are coming in for a look.

Once cleared of blackthorn all we’re left with are some larger trees. Now here’s a thing – you’d think the area being left untouched would result in nature getting itself sorted and some kind of tree utopia forming. Sadly, on our plot, the exact opposite seems to have happened.

Of the four trees registered on the site still with TPOs (Tree Preservation Orders) two were clearly dead and long gone and a third (an oak) was leaning at a hideous angle. Having had the tree surgeon cut back and make safe the two dead trees we were considering the fate of the leaning oak with our arboreal surveyor just as the root ball started to lift before our eyes – it would sadly have to go as well.

So the land is now clear of all the blackthorn and trees apart from our one, lovely, English Oak which sits proudly to one end of the site.