August 04 Newsletter

I am a jolly lumberjack - yes I am! At first I found it very easy to pass my office without the need to take a peep at the mounting in-tray. I drove a lot, on my own, and visited hills and downland. The wind seemed to blow the cobwebs away and I returned home refreshed. I felt the urge to paint again, not big canvases, but pretty bits of furniture for the Moulin, decorating them with tiny and intricate patterns. But the biggest urge to emerge that I could indulge in both France and England was the desire to tend trees….

Who’s for the chop? When people ask me what I have been doing and I reply "chopping trees" they just don’t get it. They seem to think that everything grows on its own without any outside help. Well it doesn’t. Trees need to be looked after and encouraged: pruned, trimmed, chopped and sometimes felled, in order to maintain health, give them space to grow, and to look beautiful. Forestry has become my "thing".

Luckily I have lots of trees to look after. In France the river authorities get very upset if you allow your trees to fall in the river and interrupt the water flow and then there are the fish police whose job it is to make sure there is proper root growth for fish to mate in - I kid you not!

I talk to the trees: On my last visit to the Moulin I discovered that I belonged to the river syndicate. I was invited by the chairman to a syndicate meeting, including the other interested parties - Moulin owners, farmers, fishing rights managers, government officials from the water department, scientists conducting a flow survey, and of course the river and fish police.

The meeting was held in the old railway station and took place on a very hot August afternoon. The discourse was also heated. It was conducted in French with very occasional technical translations in English and quite a lot of Franglaise from the English mill owners who became very animated when they were accused of playing around with the water levels. In fact there was rather a lot of hot air about a lot of things.

What’s your poisson? At one point one of the farmers began shouting and gesticulating and throwing his chair around. He sulked in the corner for the rest of the meeting. When the head of the fish police gave us a lecture on the mating habits of various fish everyone was very quiet, rapt in attention. It was all great fun and very difficult to keep a straight face. Nothing was achieved but everyone seemed to get their particular beef off their chest. We all left with a lot of backslapping and gentle bonhomie. Now I understand what it is to be a member of a French syndicate…

Woodman, spare that tree: The tree situation in England is a very different thing. I returned to England because we had booked a special tree felling with Simon Ringrose our local tree surgeon and forestry adviser. We have a particularly enormous Wellingtonia growing really close to some of the buildings. Having had it examined by Simon and checked with council officials (yes, we have tree police here too!) it was found to have an untreatable fungal disease. So we made the sad decision to take the tree down.

Timber! The Wellingtonia is 95 feet tall, about 33metres. It is a landmark; you can see it for miles. On the day of the felling a convoy of machinery took position around the tree. Simon turned up with a bevy of muscle-bound men in protective uniforms. The edge was taken off the sadness as we watched the men, parading their er..skills and strutting their stuff. It was extremely entertaining. I thought I would like to share the occasion with you, as I am sure there are both men and women out there who will appreciate the lads and their work. It is not often that you get such great eye candy right outside your front door.