Practical

Tree surgery

Specialising in cosmetic and remedial pruning of fruit and other garden trees. For the bigger stuff I work with other tree surgeons I know and trust ( and who are young enough to climb without the pain! ).

Hedging

Cutting and shaping without the dreaded flail!

Hedgelaying in the Lancashire and Westmoreland style. The annual Grand Prix competitions are a great way to spend a winter's day in fresh air and convivial company, the end product being a pleasure to behold.

Walling

Experienced in dry-stone walling using the random mix of granite boulders and slate shale found in Snowdonia and south Cumbria.

Planting

Trees, hedges, you name it, I've probably planted it.

Coppice work

Membership of the Coppice Association North West, amongst other organisations, gives me the chance to hang out with an odd bunch of people ( some even odder than me ), all doing things their own way but all dedicated to keeping traditional skills alive. Wheelwrights, bodgers, chair-makers, basket-makers, builders of oak frame houses, charcoal burners - on this one, please look at the packaging on your BBQ charcoal; if it doesn't say British it has probably been made from Orang-Utan habitat, being cleared to grow oil-palms for bio-fuel, then hauled halfway round the world clocking up carbon miles. Be green, be kind to endangered primates and buy locally made charcoal, and if you don't know where to buy it ask me!

Most charcoal these days is made in kilns, but occasionally we play at doing it the old way, known as an earth-burn - we cut and stacked several tonnes of timber for this one:-