We took the brave but necessary step a week ago, to ask our local tree surgeon to work his magic on the sadly neglected trees at the Farmhouse. My husband was rather doubtful about the whole project, but trees are complex guys.

Firstly height. It’s a dangerous job to rope a tree, climb and wield a chain saw or cutter. Physically we both have back issues. One slip or lift wrong and that’s the end of skipping through the orchards on a summer evening over!

Then we have work overload. Busy enough with renovating, to trim thirty trees, is to me is not viable. And finally skill. Yes I know how to renovate an old tree, thin it’s dead wood, rasp it’s bark and sever leafless branches but I also know a man who can do it better.

So Nick the tree surgeon, complete with piercings, tattoos, attitude and great sense of humour and passion for his work, arrived with his similar young sidekick and in three days we had what looked like a hurricane aftermath.

Willows, oaks, apples, a birch and a few other orchard trees were freed of energy draining dead wood and a little restructuring to bring in air and light. Damaged branches were removed and the birch reduced in height by a third.

Our friends came for a break but kindly grafted for a day moving and clearing the timber into piles. Job well done.

I like that Oak in the Bachs Rescue Remedies is used for “the plodder who keeps going beyond the point of exhaustion”. We certainly felt this way after five hours of hauling, sawing and stacking. Cold beers all round.

We paid around eight hundred euros and it’s money well spent. The trees now have winter to settle and spring to regenerate. The start of our garden project has begun in earnest.

No photos as yet, so here is a recent image I took of another local oak. It’s being unhappily strangled by ivy, another on-going job we have to do, removing these parasites, but I loved the detail and the sun poking through. A little bit of filtering I admit and if the detail isn’t showing, that’s due to my App that reduces the size for loading. Need to work on that aspect.