Today has been a busy one.

At 8am the tree surgeons arrived with their truck and mill to cut down the huge trunk of the river red gum that has shaded our driveway since we arrived at this house in 1980. We’d had the limbs cut off some months ago, in preparation for taking down this lovely tree because it’s huge roots were lifting up the driveway to an extent that even I had to admit that the tree had to go!

So I greeted the men with cups of coffee, then they set up the mill and the sawing began. The tree was still alive and I felt the hurt as the saw bit. Royce, the team leader for the day, feels the same as I do about trees, but this had to be done.

Then, as the loveliness of the tree’s timber began to show in the pieces of trunk they milled, we could see that it would live on in the things that Tristan and Blaine would create from this timber.

When they’d finished, and the beautiful wood was loaded into their truck, I drove my car behind them to Tristan’s place, and stayed there while they unloaded and stacked the milled wood.

It had been hard, but as the wood came to rest on the grassy front verge, it felt right.

So I’m tired tonight, but somehow it’s been a good day.