Seeing the wood for the cheese

When we were young and foolish and [therefore?] had a 2y.o. at foot, we all lived together in a single room, sharing a bathroom with several other inhabitants of bedsit land. There was probably a 2kW electric fire but sticks were free and I'd go out after dark for fallen branches to burn in the fireplace. This despite having zero rights of estover in Dublin 4. The something for nothing [ and devil take the beetles] thriftiness of picking sticks appealed to me.

A few years ago, I encountered a woman on our lane walking her dog but carrying a large gnarly ash branch which, she said, had fallen from one of the trees [waves one arm vaguely behind her] and she was taking it home for the fire. I felt such a rush of empathy that I forebore to tell her that the branch had fallen from my ash-tree into my lane and, but for her, I might well have picked it up myself. I saw here quite a lot after that because she was renting a converted byre about 1 km West along our valley. Let us call her Geal. About the same time, we acquired another new neighbour, Ford, who moved into the little wooden house at the bottom of the lane. And lo! Ford also came with a dog and soon enough the two canines were besties-on-the-block. I'm not sentimental and defo not a doggy person, but it was touching to see these two middle-aged dogs romping around like arthritic puppies plainly delighted with each other.

In December 2024, Storm Darragh blasted through, and we lost a few trees. But neighbour Ford woke up to a garden catastrophe. Two adjacent grossly overgrown Leylandia Cupressocyparis leylandii had been batted out of his Western hedge and carried away an enormous Eucalyptus. The latter came to rest across his driveway requiring bushwacking skills of those needing access to the house. It took much of 2025 and a mort o'money [and a lot of neighbourly labour] to reclaim the garden.Through the year, a certain amount of the smaller timber was sawn up and taken away by Geal. 

Then, in the back end of 2025, Ford heard that the owners wanted to sell his home of 2½ years. That's the way in Ireland: the Constitution privileges property over welfare. But the new year brought better news: Ford having been approved and on the wait-list for council housing in the adjacent county for nine (9!) years, heard that his number had come up and he'd be able to collect keys to his new gaff at the end of February. I was bereft because, although we had nothing in common, I really like Ford. But I was also delirah, because he was getting a home with better insulation, fewer crashable trees and much closer to his family.

But the change of address put the skids on saving the wind-thrown sticks and passing them up the chimneys of people in Ford's network. A few weeks ago, I offered Ford my labour until the tank ran dry on my chainsaw. It turns out that, if the chain is sharp, a surprisingly large heap of firewood can be generated in ~1 hour:

So much, indeed, that Ford's suburban sister complained her allotmen wouldn't all fit in her fuel store. Geal, who has a proper rural sized wood-shed, was so happy with her heap that she sent me a selection of fine cheese [with a couple of avocados for scale!]:

That was nice, and timely, because I love cheese and it was Caisleán na Cáise for the Clan when they came home for Easter. But the potlatch [mutual exchange of extravagant gifts] was set to continue. On Fig Tuesday evening Ford knocked on our door to ask three (3) favours: 

1. His fridge being shipped, could he borrow a corner of our freezer until he followed  it in a few days time?
2. Could I take him & a last load of household gubbins to the new place sometime over Easter weekend ?
3. Could I give Geal another tankful of gas and reduce another cache of branches to logs ?

A: Yes I said Yes I will Yes. And furthermore I would help load Geal's car and shuttle loads to her woodshed until the wave of firewood ebbed to mere sawdust and grass. And that was its own reward because we nattered about the weather (and the neighbours) as we made the short journey back & forth.