One Point Four Tonnes

The chipper went up the marsh track at four minutes past seven and it did not come down again until twenty to three, because between eight and ten past two that track was under a foot and a half of water, and a chipper is twelve hundred kilos of machinery with an air filter.

“That’s the whole day decided,” Elias said, at ten past seven, chocking the trailer on the flat bit by the churchyard wall. “Everything we’re taking off that tree today gets chipped today. Nothing goes down the hill till the water’s off.”

“And if we’re not finished?”

“Then it sits on the grass and Jean Pettifer has a stroke.” He looked up into the crown. “We’ll be finished.”

We were finished at four minutes past three, and it was the best working day I have had in a decade, and I am aware of how that sounds.…