I'm a lumberjack and I'm ok

Hazel and I had great fun this afternoon taking the decorations off the large church Christmas tree (of whacky star infamy). Now we could have done this the traditinoal climbing the ladder and carefully removing everything method in order to reduce needle droppage but as the tree (which was of exceedingly poor quality but given to us for free so...) had already thrown needles all over the floor of the church we thought we'd be a bit more... shall we say original?

Ok so it was partly that the VERY tall ladder is somewhat unwieldy and one of us had a sore back but there was also a tenny bit of mischievousness going on I think, if we're honest!

So there we are with a 15ft tree covered in gold and silver baubles and two sets of lights. We start by picking off the baubles we can reach.Then after that we start unpeeling the lights at the bottom. As we get high however, we can't reach any more baubles or untangle the lights from the upper branches, we reach an impasse.

Then comes a little gentle shaking of some lower branches and the gently *ping* of baubles hitting Victorian restoration wooden floor. A little gentle hopping and looping of light cable (unplugged - worry not!) from mid height branches. We now have a three quartes bare tree surrounded by a little green sea of needles.

Second impasse. Then a lightbulb appears above Hazel's head and a big grin grows on her face. "I'll be back in a sec" she says and goes off to the back of the church only to return with a long extendable pole (and a personal fanfare!). Champion!

So now proceeds the exciting task of unhooking the upper echelons of the lights from the tree. Of course in the process of this we occassionally knocked off the odd bauble here and there. Then the exchange of mischievous glances and the removal of baubles becomes the aim! Much excitement of bouncing baubles! Very cool.

We managed to clear the whole tree (except the star which was secured firmly with wire to the very top) ready for collection by the council tomorrow. It does however now look ABSOLUTELY dreadful! I do hope the Mothers' Union won't mind when they come for their service tomorrow!