Mary Killen Mary Killen

Dear Mary: how can I stop my husband from chopping down all our trees?

Plus: how to get past a pavement gang

Q. My husband — currently unemployed — has started ‘sourcing’ logs from our own smallholding. Chopping down perfectly good trees, sawing logs, drying them … to say nothing of trying to get a fire going without proper kindling or firelighters, is now taking him up to three hours per day. I realise that this is displacement activity but I would rather he was doing something using his brain. When I tell him I am going to order seasoned logs from the local sawmills (at £90 per cubic metre) he says it would be emasculating for him if I did this, as he is gaining self-esteem by providing for his family.
— Name and address withheld

A. It might be subtler if, having explained the situation to a sympathetic local landowner, you asked if you might get the sawmill to deliver a seasoned load to a site on his land. The landowner might then approach your husband saying he has more logs than he can possibly use and requesting that he help him out by using as many as he can throughout the winter. In this way your husband could collect a wheelbarrow-load at a time, still gain the frisson of pleasure from getting something he perceives to be ‘free’, and still provide himself with a displacement activity — though not one which takes quite so many hours per day.

Q. I never know what the etiquette is when I am walking along a pavement and find a group of maybe three people walking towards me. Often such gangs seem barely aware of anyone else. It’s as though they own the street. Is it up to me to step into the gutter or squash myself up against the wall to let them past? Or should I say ‘Excuse me?’ until they mind their manners and make way?
— J.W.,

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in