Today was a good day. When is a day standing in a muddy field in the pouring rain not a good day? Well, today … I got in the zone!

I only found out on Saturday that Lisa had half-term this week and I would be able to get on with the trees so its been a bit stressful feeling I “had to” get all the trees in by the end of the week and I “had to” make sure I had enough trees for people to plant. Feeling under pressure from these obligations I was putting on myself and worrying about not having all of the trees detracted from the bigger picture and, to be honest, made it all a bit of a chore. Well I collected the last of the trees last night and I decided I didn’t really have to get all of the trees planted this week, and I even got a chance to check with Lisa that she was actually OK with me rushing off to the land for a week (I kind of missed that bit in my excitement, but luckily she was forgiving). So today all this allowed me to look up from the ground and look out over the whole ten acres of newly created woodland and just think … wow, this is just too cool! This combination of efforts from all sorts of directions has created and will nurture this amazing resource. And once the pressure was off I felt really energised, it stopped being such a chore (I’m probably a bit fitter after a couple of days too) and I could get back to loving being there on a hillside surrounding by sweeping vistas and working on such an exciting project.

Saying that the rain was spectacular today; it alternated between torrential downpours and sunshine. The rain came in from the same direction the slope faces over a ten mile wide bowl of ridges. So I’d be standing in the sun and able to watch these solid walls of rain as they slowly crept over the valley towards me. And it being the first time out in my waterproofs I didn’t realise the rubber had perished over the shoulders so the rain slowly seeped in and dribbled down my arms. I went and bought a new jacket at lunchtime and that allowed me to see it all a bit more poetically in the afternoon.

So roll on Day 4 of the tree-planting adventure. Another 120 oaks went in today, so 450 so far. That’s just 350 oaks, 100 hazels, 100 willows and 50 elder to go.