Trees

I don't have room to plant many trees. It doesn't stop me doing so from time to time. Strangely on New Year's day both a friend we had staying (who I suppose at least has the excuse of having started, but not finished, a forestry degree) and my brother, who came for lunch, expressed a desire to plant some trees. It is a desire I too have been secretly harbouring against the day when I have the space to do so. I half considered clubbing together, buying a field and just planting the things randomly when we had the time and money. If this is a mid-life crisis I suspect it is a harmless, in fact even mildly entertaining, one - there is to my strange mind something quite funny about three mad old chaps planting trees in an otherwise empty field.

My office has for some months been engaged in a programme of confiscating waste paper bins, preferring us instead to put our rubbish in a variety of strategically placed re-cycling bins. It is not the concept that bothers me - it is the fact that we believe we should have someone spend their time thinking about this stuff when there seems to me so much else to do. I have no problem with recycling - the majority of our household waste is paper (we read a lot) and bottles (we don't hold back on the drink front) and we pretty religiously manage to put it in the appropriate box for collection. It doesn't mean we don't have bins about the place. On Friday the office bins in my department got a reprieve. I will try to put my stuff in the re-cycling bins. To salve my conscience (and more importantly because I enjoyed doing so) I planted a tree this morning to offset my wastefulness. In my view much better environmentally, economically and for my sense of humour.