Helping the family Hammond shift a few Christmas Trees was a very pleasant way to spend the weekend. With the glass-house all decked out in Christmas lights, mince pies from Granny and hundreds of trees suspended from the roof, I'd expected a warm, friendly weekend with family and complete strangers. However, I didn't expect it to lead to yet another visit to A&E.
Ordinarily I am not one to engage in Christmas until after my birthday on December 11th. However The Ranch is a fantastic place to visit and I was quite up for some manual labour. I've never seen so many Christmas Trees strung-up looking to lure a new owner, only to perish in a few weeks time. It's a strange thing to get picky about but people were very much concerned that the trees didn't lose their needles before Christmas. I assume Boxing Day they can drop away because no one is sober enough to care then but the panic people had about needle dropage was strange. I felt it improper, seeing as we were trying to sell these trees, to inform them that they were dead. Having been severed from their roots a few days ago, no amount of watering would preserve them further. They were dying and people were prepared to pay £65 to watch them die, slowly, over the next three weeks.
People have absurd requests when it comes to trees. They are all looking for their perfect tree and for most people, sadly, that means a tree which is symmetrical throughout. Something that nature is yet to produce and surely never will. If you want a symmetrical tree, you need to buy a fake one from Argos. Real trees are...were living entities and like humans come in all sorts of annoying shapes and sizes. Just ask any woman who's been dress shopping. No dress in any shop, anywhere in the world fits a woman perfectly. Every woman's shape is different, every tree shape is different. You purchase the one that's close enough. It's a compromise. Now buying a Christmas Tree is the same adventure. We don't grow trees with the corner of a two bed semi-detached bungalow's front room in mind. You need to pick one that you're quite happy to watch die and have got a plan on where to put it on January 1st.
I understand that choosing the right tree is a very personal thing. It has to be, as every home is different. Every bauble placement will be controversial and every set of lights will have a bulb broken and some people have the same dislike for tinsel as they do the Nazi's . There are however some things that are not personal and to spend over an hour deciding them when they are already decided for you is a waste of your weekend. For instance. Unless your tree is going to stand in the middle of your room, you only need three good sides. The amount of people who turned down a tree because one side had less branches, or too many branches, or was not bushy enough or too long, too short...the list goes on. What difference is it going to make? You're going to cover the tree in loud, sparkly tinsel, lights and baubles and then shove it next to the radiator, TV, sofa, table, wall...delete as appropriate. No one is going to see the "crap" side! This all stems from people wanted to impress their family and friends with their tree but these people have failed to notice the true icon of the living room during Christmas...the television. When anyone comes to your house to stay at Christmas they will politely say the tree looks wonderful and will always enjoy your food but in reality they are judging you on your television not your Norway Spruce. You could have a gold plated Christmas Tree with Kelly Brooke as the fairy on top but unless you've got a 52" flat-screen plasma surround sound with SKY plus you won't be getting a reciprocal invite next year.
One strange couple wanted their tree washed. Apparently they had found a tiny amount of mud on one of the branches and had decided they wanted to wash it off. This of course was to protect their beige lounge carpet. What was astonishing was that they couldn't understand that this was a bit weird. Of course the tree has mud on it. When it was chopped down it fell to one side and landed in the undergrowth then presumably was dragged from the Forest to the selling point. During this process I am sure a bit of mud accumulated on the branches somewhere. So we made them wash their own tree, to much amusement of the other customers. Of course what they didn't seem to understand is when it comes to packing the tree in the netting I would be dropping it on the floor. A floor that was covered in soil, sawdust and parts of previously packed trees. Being wet, this new debris would attach itself to the tree in greater quantities than the "mud" and give the tree a bread crumbed affect. Hey-ho they paid £65, they're the mugs.
I must admit that I have never been too fussed about the style of tree that I would cover in baubles. For this reason it amazed me when people would spend over an hour discussing and choosing their tree. In a way it is because they had too much choice. There were over 200 trees in the glass-house with another 50 still growing in the field outside should people want to chop one down or dig one up and put it in a pot. Also none of them were wrapped. So you could look at them in all their beauty. Perhaps though it was part of the fun of choosing. I know that those who came to Spithandle Nursery quite enjoyed the welcome, the tea, the music, the decorations, the lucky dip and the vast choice of trees but it didn't half make them picky. Imagine going to Homebase or B&Q for your tree. Yes, they would be cheaper but that's because they are rubbish. Plus you wouldn't actually know what your tree looked like because it was already wrapped. No, I didn't like the "choosy" people. I liked the people who embraced the weird shapes and sizes of the trees and understood that although a little decision making was required, in the end it didn't really matter.
At Spithandle there is more on offer than just choosing a tree. For children there is a lucky dip (sweets) and pony rides and for adults there were hot drinks and mince pies & biscuits. These were free and all we asked is that you kindly donate to the charity Action for Children which is the charity that Amy is running for in the London Marathon. Considering what people got from the experience I think many of them were rather tight on their charitable giving. They had something to drink, to eat, to keep the children happy. They had over 200 trees to choose from and we wrapped them and carried them to their cars. There was music, good cheer and on the Saturday Father Christmas turned up (I had brought my Father Christmas costume and throughout the afternoon I amused shoppers and scared children with a slightly underweight Saint Nick who for some reason spoke like Roger Moore. Apparently it was very funny so I kept it up for four hours.). For all this, I think in general they gave poorly for the experience. You'd get none of that at Homebase. Of course some people were very polite friendly and happy to give and we thank them for that but for those who just took a tea, mince pie, allowed their children to take a few too many sweets from the lucky dip and thought they were riding a donkey instead of a horse...you're not welcome back next year. For those people and to be fair there weren't that many, next year come buy your tree and then fuck off.
Buying a Christmas Tree is rarely an impulse buy. You know when you're off to get one. So if that's the case why don't people clear out their cars to allow room for the tree they plan to take home. When buying a tree there are two size constraints. The first is whether it will fit in the living room. The second is whether it will fit in the car. I believe these should be the other way around as most people clearly only thought about the house and forgot the car.
After the drama of selecting a tree comes the trauma of getting it home. The tree is constantly shedding needles. Carrying it home delicately is vital to ensuring that there are more needles on the tree than in the car boot. So with that in mind I was amazed to find people turning in up in hatchbacks and coupes hoping to take home a seven footer. I must have carried over a hundred trees back to peoples cars and every time I was greeted with a new challenge. I'm can't believe that christmas-tree-car-shoving didn't appear on The Crystal Maze and should the Generation Game make a timely re-appearance on BBC One the "art" may actually replace the sausage making machine game. It wasn't just that people had brought small cars. It's that the cars they brought were full of other stuff. Recycling boxes, bikes, pushchairs, grocery shopping, rubbish for the tip. One guy opened the boot of his Mazda two-door sports car to reveal golf clubs! It wasn't just "stuff" either. Selecting a tree was a family experience, although I'm not sure you need to bring your dog. Most came in couples so the back-seat and boot option was on. Those with kids, the dog and the shopping struggled a little but we managed to get every tree in, on or sticking out of every car. I couldn't understand why most people hadn't thought this through. It's not as if it was an impulse buy. The nursery was two miles from anything. There's no way you would have been driving past and thought "you know what, lets get a real tree". My favourite challenge was that of a two door sports car with soft-top. The roof retracts into the boot. The boot hasn't been cleaned out so there's rubbish, de-icer cans and random magazines taking up valuable room. The back seats fold down but there is only a 6 inch gap to slide things between the boot and the small back-seat area. It's raining...hard so we've ruled out putting the roof down. Oh did I mention she'd brought her dog which was sitting in the back and her elderly father in the front passenger seat. After recommending that she didn't try to shove it through the gap...she probably did but I don't know how she did it as after ten minutes and through her embarrassment she shoo-ed me away, so I left her to it. I can only assume she tied her father to the roof.
I am by no means an expert on Christmas trees. However within an hour of selling them, I was. The public assumed I knew something about them because I was selling them. I was pleased to continue this charade. I knew my non-drop from my spruces and jokingly informed people that there was a tree out there for everyone. Of course when I say "out there" I mean at this nursery and not at some rivals.
To keep with tradition I couldn't let 2009 go by without a visit to casualty. Those of you who know me best will be able to list all the broken bones and stitches I have required over the years. I have certainly got my monies worth from the NHS. This injury was new to me though. I managed to scratch my eye on one of the pine needles. The discomfort was instant but I was able to soldier on. However my eye kept wanting to close. It was if I had something in there but on inspection I could find anything. Waking up the next day my eye was watering and my vision blurred. I continued to work but staring at the computer and TV screens on my desk with my one good eye became tiresome and gave me a headache. So I left work and went to Kingston Hospital's Eye unit. The place was packed with patients. Clearly a lot of people had shoved a Christmas Tree in their eye over the weekend. The receptionist, who seemed to be behind two inch thick bullet proof glass, informed me that there would be a long wait, about three hours. I kind of guessed that was going to be the case but I was pleased that it was on works time and not my own. So I set off around reception reading all the posters, pondering which newspaper I would read and had a chat with the coffee lady to see if she was staying. She was dispensing drinks from a coffee cart and looked poised to move on to another part of the hospital at any time. I didn't want a coffee right now but I knew the buying and drinking process would kill some time after I'd read all the posters on eye diseases.
I was only there twenty minutes when the nurse called me in for a check-up to see how bad I was and decide where to put me in the three hour queue for the doctor. She squirted anesthesia into my eye which meant I couldn't feel it. It was strange. I don't knowingly feel my eye, it's just there. When I was supposed not to be able to feel it because of the anesthesia I actually felt the loss. Confusing I know, but I don't consciously breath. My body just makes it happen but as soon as I think about breathing it becomes all erratic. So a numbed eye is like that. You shouldn't feel it anymore but you do.
Anyway the nurse then looked in my eye and discovered that I'd scratched my cornea. The bodies natural defense for this is to close the eye to start repairs. The nurse also discovered a small amount of debris which she took out with a cotton bud. I have to admit at this stage that I was feeling a little unwell. I'm not a fan of anything in my eye. I didn't faint but I did feel sick. Then an eye test and thankfully I am still 20/20 in both eyes. This discovery coupled with the removal of tree from my eye meant that there was no meed for me to see or be seen by, the doctor. Excellent. All I had to do was squirt some gel type stuff in my eye every four hours and the eye would be fine in a week. I was quite relived it wasn't worse but not looking forward to putting stuff in my eye all week.
Next year I think the visit to casualty will be back to familiar territory with a broken bone or two and when I'm selling trees I plan to wear goggles.
HDM
Sunday, 6 December 2009
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