What comes round goes round

Emerging from the wood to the Beccles Road, I heard a rustle and then saw a large SUV parked, and a man heaving the oak wood, I’d had recently felled, into the back of his car.

‘Ah, I see you are taking my wood’, I say, evenly with a smile, as I imagine the man must be taken aback at a person emerging from the wood interior unexpectedly, with 3 dogs in tow. But he was quick to respond:
“I thought it was roadside wood for the taking. Is this your wood?”
I walked around the SUV to face him, and seeing the size of the large oak limbs, I responded.
“Yes, it’s my wood, which I recently had cut down with a cherry picker as was overhanging the road, but hey, I’m not going to get around to collecting it, you carry on.”
“Are you sure?” he said. “That’s great, thank you. So this is your wood?”
“Yes, my wood, do you want to see inside?”
“Thanks but we’re in a bit of a hurry”.
“No problem.”

As I walked on the conversation replayed. First I chastised myself, have I been too soft, he could have offered at least a bottle of wine! But then I turned in a different direction, whose wood was it? I didn’t plant it, although I did pay to have it cut. It was road side, and that is anyone’s gift. I’d done a fair amount of scrumping in my life.

The following day, he phoned me. He’d found my number from the sign on the wood entrance gate. “I’ve got you a bottle of wine”, he said, “And I’d like to see your wood”

He came a few days later and with some rose wine. I gave him the usual tour and through an easy conversation we established that he needed wood for his wood burner, and I needed my wood cut up, and there was plenty to share all round. A win win. It turned out he was a landlord of property in Halesworth Thoroughfare. It didn’t altogether surprise me to find out he was Jo’s landlord. I thought I’d met him before.

January 2022 Jo, who was working with me as part of the Elders forest school team, huddled around the fire in the wood, saying she was feeling so cold, living in a flat with ice on the inside of the windows. It was during the terrible hike in oil prices with the Russia–Ukraine war when oil prices skyrocketed to over $110 per barrel. Her heating was expensive and ineffective electric night storage heaters. Come and stay the night with me, I said to Jo, I have a wonderful wood burner and warm home, come and unfreeze for a night.

As it happened, that night before she came, I experienced a moderate difficulty in breathing, called 111, but seemingly solved the dilemma by taking an aspirin and a few drams of whisky. By the time Jo came I felt fine, we ate, she delighted in the fire, took a hot shower, and we both retired to bed. Suddenly the shortness of breath returned, and to cut a long story short, Jo rushed me to A&E at midnight, where I was treated immediately for a pulmonary embolism, and they doctor said Jo’s swift action had been essential, a life saver. She stayed with me all that night of tests and confirmations and finally, with new drugs ‘For Life’ Jo drove us back as dawn broke. She remained with me for that week.

Rob cut the oak wood at the entrance that I had not managed to get around to, in to chunks to suit the size of my log burner, stacked it in my van to take home for the log store there. Perfect burning material, dead dry oak, and I was pleasantly in advance preparing for the winter before summer had ended. He also cut some wood I had been trying to get cut for months, at forest school, so that was ready then for the September start of the forest school year. It turned out to be an eventful day. J arrived unexpectedly with a seed which he presented to me as a metaphore, and a short while later I realised he was becoming manic