On the Uxbridge Road this morning there were men high up in the trees outside the church, with chain saws, cutting off the high branches. There's a job I wouldn't like. They were perched precariously at the top of a tree, with no fear, chopping away at the limbs in what looked like a carefree manner, though I presume they knew what they were doing. But who knows, maybe they were just a group of mates who'd got drunk this morning, remembered they had some chain saws in the shed and thought "Hey, you know what would be fun? Let's take some trees apart branch by branch!"
I think working at this height would terrify me more than almost any other. A bit lower and the vertigo might not strike, a bit higher and you are far enough away from the ground to forget it's there. The trees were about as high as the church, which means that if you fell out, you'd be broken on the ground in a second or so. Sometimes being closer to the ground is worse than being high up. When I did my parachute jump my fear of heights went out the window (almost literally) as I was too high up to make sense of any of it. But here, the solid, bone breaking pavement is just feet away.
And if that wasn't enough to worry about the tool of their trade was a chainsaw. Perched on the end of a branch - how did they know it would bear their weight?- holding a fast moving saw with thousands of teeth. This was better than the circus. How cool were these guys? They were fearless, destructive and fit and yet they were also probably making the tree better. So their violence and death-defying feats also had a caring kindness behind them. Women must love these guys. I know I did. In fact I hope they are all part of a gay tree pruning chainsaw commune, who swagger round the country caring for trees and then making love in the branches as their chainsaws whirr dangerously close to their appendages....
I thought about asking if I could join their merry throng, but my inability to climb trees, fear of heights, clumsiness and terror of chainsaws might make the job interview a bit embarrassing. I could just hope that they'd want me along because I am so good looking, so whilst I might not be good at the actual job, I'd be great at the after work sex. But again if I put that to them in the interview I think it might not go down too well. Though all of those guys secretly fantasises about making love with his work colleagues in the trimmed branches of the tree, I fear they might all be too repressed and macho to be the one to make the first move.
As we walked by it was raining light sawdust. The Uxbridge Road, usually the province of shitting tramps, was a magical wonderland. Except when the sawdust went in your eye. Then it was quite annoying.
Here's details of what's coming up for me in the next five weeks
in my latest newsletter.
