Once again to Scammonden, and this morning we planted 45 Lime, 30 Birch, 105 Oak, 15 Ash, and 105 Rowan. Grant total 300 trees, I think.
Yes, one might say that we were involved in a Baudrilliardian simulacrum of the manual labour that our recent relatives would have considered unpleasant toil - but a morning spent working in the hail and sleet of a frosty morning on a bare hillside, followed by a pint or three of beer in a pub with a roaring fire felt quite real to me, and actually pretty damn good. It beat wandering around (not very) diverse modern retail outlets doing Christmas shopping anyway. And the juke box selection in the Sair was good too, Lou Reed, The Who, Fern Kinney.
We were: myself, Ann, Philip, Ramsay, Brian, Peter, Trevor, Philip, Geoff, Ben, Andrew and Dave.
Cake was chocolate, with, apparently, a quarter pint of whisky in it.
We will take a break from Scammonden now for a couple of weeks. Next week will be Butterley and Burt Platts (for the Senior Section), Christmas Eve, Marsden.
30 Birch to be returned to Scammonden at some point. Lots of stakes and guards left on site.