Confessions of a would be tree thief.

Today with the onset of the yule, a festival which I try to have as little to do with as possible I might add.... Management and I went off on Xmas tree bent.

Braving the rising wind we donned warm everything armed ourselves with her ferocious looking forestry tools and set off for the common.

Well when I say "common" I should perhaps qualify that.

Many years ago this house and a number of other small holdings had rights to graze 500 acres of land held in common ownership. With the last war looming on the horizon the government in their wisdom took the common land and some of it ended up as a military base and some of it was planted with trees.

This in turn was the governments excuse not to hand the common land back when they closed the base. Rather they sold it on to one of their cronies.

We strode, despite the buffeting wind, up the long abandoned road to the long abandoned community at the head of the valley.

Prior to 1936 this had been a small group of smallholders ecking a precarious living off tiny plots of land high over the valley below.

Passing the remnants of their one room cottages we descended the hill, crossed streams and bogs before entering the forestry on Xmas tree bent.

Since we were last down here the place has been cleared. industrial tree processors ripped everything out leaving behind a waste of barren land being rapidly claimed by brambles.

There was enough wood discarded to keep us in fire wood for years, trouble was I could see no way of getting it.

Added to that the cedars edging the remaining forest were swaying in a way that it didn't need the forest manager in training to tell me was not good in the dangerous sort of way.

Retracing our steps I threw myself down to rest sheltering from the wind in shattered walls of a fallen cottage. Surrounded by the ghosts of yesterday I hid from the winds of today.

Back on the move and the wind pushed us away, on our way, till we crossed the brow of the hill and home to the comforting orange glow of the green goddess on the drive.


R