h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

So our middle son came home on Thursday afternoon and conjured a smile onto his Dad's face when he said he'd come back specially to

(a) celebrate Dad's birthday with him
(b) help get all the wood home - there were still 2-3 really thick treetrunks needing to be sawn and chopped.

On Friday, he and his Dad went to the woods and did one tankfulsworth of sawing and on Saturday morning the other two came from Karlsruhe. Although it was pouring with rain, we all went out and did actually manage, as a result of this concerted effort, to get everything sawn up and chopped into chunks small enough to be loaded onto the trailer. As the rain continued, the lawn got softer and softer. We have to drive the car right across the lawn with the loaded trailer, and towards the end, the tyres were going in deeper and deeper.

So we've got all the wood in, but the lawn's a mess!

The planned picnic had to be removed to the dining room at home. Typically for us, the 40 minutes while we sat round the table eating our sandwiches and fruit and drinking tea were the only dry minutes of the whole day!!

In the evening, after everyone had had a nice hot shower, we went out for a birthday meal. The carpark of the restaurant we went to was one huge puddle!

I'm still ploughing my way through an enormous wet pile of dirty working clothes - dungarees, socks, jackets and gloves.

What a lovely day! Were you really well enough to do that or are you deliberately extending your sick leave?

Sounds like a satisfying day's work.

Nice word, tankfulsworth. Has a Teutonic ring, somehow.

Thanks for your thoughts, WS - I was fully recovered by then.

I really am proud of my three boys. Especially the youngest, who is a real layabout, but has common sense in spades and just gets on with things - swinging the axe and organising a chain for loading the trailer.

Despite the inclemency of the weather, none of us caught sissy colds or anything from our day in the woods.