About three months ago - probably more, as it was pre-Christmas, I started walking around on all-fours whenever I boiled the kettle, and let me tell you, human legs are longer than human arms, and this makes it a challenge.

I saw a thing on Instagram, though I think it probably came from TikTok about the merits of walking on your hands and feet for a few minutes each day — and I drink so much tea that kettle-boily time is a set of two or three minutes with several daily iterations. It was hard work at first - I imagine it’s like a sloppy lolloping yoga - but I figured it might help me grow limber. I like the idea of being limber. I like being able to leap like spring-heeled jack, and when I encounter a countryside gate, I lean over it, grip the lower bars on the other side and violently swing my legs up and over to land on the far side. It’s satisfying, and to some people alarming, and actually it hurts, but it’s fun! Until recently I was limber enough to touch my elbows together behind my back - which to me is the mark of limberness - but I’m holding off practicing that one while my shoulder-bone is fractured. I’ll get back to it, though. Anyone can, with a little daily practice.

Ava once saw me scampering around the floor while the kettle boiled and asked what the purpose was. I said, ‘it’s so I can climb trees’. She asked if I had ever seen a tree.

And then as the new year arrived, I did see a tree. Our neighbour Betty pointed out that the tree which looms over both our gardens - and is technically my tree, though I’d never been close enough to physically touch it until now - had grown incredibly, incredibly big, and was dropping leaves all over her garden — and shouldn’t we hire someone to chop off the high branches, and so forth. Since it’s my tree and I try to be a good neighbour I agreed to go halfsies, but when she came back and said she’d found a guy who’d do it for £1,500, I thought ‘well, there are not that many pounds in the whole world’, so I went ought and bought a reticulating saw, and set about doing the job myself. Either I’ll accomplish it, or I’ll clear up the environment around the tree enough to bring the price down.

It was never pride - not on this occasion - it was stinginess, blended with a New Year’s Resolution. I was going to try new things. I was going to put myself outside the comfort zone, because during the pandemic my life had become so small and so repetitive. Why not go up a tree and use a power tool? I got my answer, eventually.

It turned out the tree was tall. I put out a call to borrow a 3 metre ladder. My friend Isobel lent me a 5-metre ladder which could extend to 9 metres, and actually it turned out this was actually the length I needed. The higher up a tree you go, the more height you discover. And when you cut a branch off, it my seem small in the air, but as it passes you - or doesn’t pass you, in one regrettable case - it grows bigger and heavier, and on the ground it is too hefty for one person to lift. It’s a wonder the tree can hold branches up at all. Fun fact: tree wood is heavier than everyday wood. When wood is alive in a tree, it has a very high percentage of moisture. After you cut it, you store it for months, and it loses water and weight. Additional fun fact with depressing context: Jerusalem in Biblical times was very much surrounded by trees. It’s easy to think of it in a dry and dusty terrain, but it was well-wooded until the seige and destruction of the city in 70 AD, when the Romans cut almost all of them down, resulting in the desertification of the land. As a part-time carpenter, did Jesus do his own tree-cutting? If so, he was probably a lot stronger than me — though lumberjack was a separate profession back then, so perhaps not, or not on the regular.

I met a few neighbours during my tree-climbing. Some regarded me with suspicion at first, but I did what I could to return any contact, other than the bit where the children shouted slurs at me. I met Cat, who has a dog, and Mick, a retired army man who flies a union flag, and occasionally has incredibly loud late-night parties. I suspect he gets complaints about the latter, but I took the opportunity to compliment his choice of tunes. If someone’s going to play perfectly loud hits until 1 in the morning, I’m glad they’re bangers. As I said before, I’m keen to be a good neighbour. Not a great neighbour. I’m no Flanders, despite some similarities - but an ok enough neighbour that nobody despises or condemns me. When other neighbours meet, I don’t want to be the subject of bitter gossip, a sinister-shaped creature. So actually saying hello in a friendly way seemed like the best boon to come out of the tree adventure.

I prayed a great amount any time I went up the ladder, that God would protect me, as he protected, presumably, thousands of years of tree-cutting ancestors in ancient times. I probably did more praying when up the ladder than at any other time - for myself, and for other people. I’m not greedy. I knew, or knew of, folk who were in dire and immediate aid, so I would put them up as a priority, but also earnestly ask for my own life to continue. Having seen footage of my fall, I’m glad I prayed as much as I did, as I really needed all the help I got. Head, neck and shoulder can be vulnerable places.

I did the tree. I met my neighbours. I fell and I did not die. And yesterday I went up the ladder one last time, after a month’s break, to cut a rope that was holding a dangling branch, and then I took the ladder down. I gave up ladders for Lent, but yesterday was the one feast day in Lent, and I can mark the tree as finished. Thank God it’s over. Thanks, God!