No, not the one from last Friday’s photo. The cherry tree I was concerned with today is one that a neighbour in a nearby street cut down a few weeks ago. Somebody else’s property, somebody else’s tree and somebody else’s decision to remove it but Jane and I were sad to see it go. However, being beady-eyed wood foragers, we couldn’t help but notice that the dismembered tree was sitting outside the house looking as if it might be getting in the way.

We’ve tried calling round a couple of times but this morning, coming back from a short walk over to Shotover, we caught her in and it turned out she was very happy for us to have the wood. We popped back this afternoon and, after a bit of sawing (my prototype sawbuck was invaluable), we got most of it in the car. As a bonus, we also got given several bags of commercial firewood that she had in her garage – she is having a bit of a clear out and was glad to avoid fees at the dump.

It is sad to see another local tree go but at least this one (after another few sessions of hard labour and a year or two to season) will do one last good by keeping us warm.