No good deed goes unpunished

[Nefarious]

I'm moaning this morning because a "favour" has grown arms and legs and I now have an even bigger and less pleasant job to do.
Story is this: one of my flats is in a block shared with a doctor's surgery. The manager at the surgery is the one that coordinates communal repairs. She emailed about having a bunch of trees trimmed and all the admin that entails (multiple tree surgeon quotes, permissions from 36 flats etc etc).
Now, being a cunning, wily type, I saw an opportunity. Cesca, my daughter, is planning to study medicine at uni and has been desperate for work experience. With all the care homes locking down for covid, opportunities are in short supply.
So I offered to sort all the tree trimming free, but asked that they give Cesca work experience on a volunteer basis.
An excellent plan, and well executed, even if I do say so myself. Cesca has her work experience, and it's infinitely better that what we'd hoped (proper medical experience rather than just making tea etc).
Except the tree job has turned into a nightmare. There was far more of it that I'd thought, access was much more difficult, and the material itself is horribly thorny.
So I did the cutting yesterday, nearly fell off the roof several times, nearly chopped myself with the chainsaw several times, and lashed myself to ribbons on the thorns. Worst of all, I've successfully generated a massive pile of tangled thorny branches that I now have to somehow deal with.
I had hoped to call in a favour from a landscape gardener pal, but it's not going to be possible. So my job for this morning is go and buy a £100 chipper, take it to the garage and modify it, chop all the material into manageable chunks and chip it, then ferry it to the dump in 2-3 trips.

[Broccers]

How much would it have cost for someone to do it for you?

[Rich B]

Sounds like you're making plenty of practice injuries for your daughter to review. Good work

[Jimmy Choo]

Sounds like you're making plenty of practice injuries for your daughter to review. Good work

[mik]

So my job for this morning is go and buy a £100 chipper, take it to the garage and modify it, chop all the material into manageable chunks and chip it, then ferry it to the dump in 2-3 trips.

Better to rent a proper chipper?

I have an electric “home” chipper and it is not fast…. I certainly wouldn’t want to put the best part of a full tree through it….

[scotta]

So my job for this morning is go and buy a £100 chipper, take it to the garage and modify it, chop all the material into manageable chunks and chip it, then ferry it to the dump in 2-3 trips.

Better to rent a proper chipper?

I have an electric “home” chipper and it is not fast…. I certainly wouldn’t want to put the best part of a full tree through it….

[Nefarious]

I could have paid someone, but have you seen the price of tree surgeons? Didn't get a quote on this one, but the last one was a "crown reduction" on a single, although admittedly very high, tree. Tree surgeon quoted £1700. I did it in about 3 hours (playing fairly fast and loose with H&S).

My plan a was to hire a big one, but HSS didn't have one today, and they wanted 150 notes anyway, which I reckon is a bit steep.

I'm about half way through this job now. The big branches are going ok. It's all the thin spikey stuff that's a pain. Hard to feed in, and tries to rip you to shreds when you do.

I'll definitely deserve a beer later!

[speedingfine]

I would like photos of this hellish task Glad you're nearly through it!

[Mito Man]

Trees are hard work, one of those jobs which is a full body workout dealing with them

[Nefarious]

No photos, I'm afraid, but I did completely fill 3 ton bags with mulch (and another one with stuff I couldn't mulch). Took me all bastard day, plus another 40 mins afterwards to repair the loppers that I borrowed from my gardener neighbours and broke

But even though I'm mildly irked at having to shell out on the shredder, needing to put in a day and a half of hard physical graft, and looking like I've been several rounds with a particularly irate cat, I'm pretty pleased at the result:

Cesca's thing couldn't have worked out better. She also had her first half-day working at the surgery yesterday and it's clear that this is going to be soooo much better than the generic work experience she would've got otherwise.

The standard thing is for the aspiring med students to do a stint at the local hospital or care home. It's quite impersonal, and mostly involves making tea and cleaning while being ignored/barely tolerated by the actual medical staff. By contrast, this thing is shaping up to be something fab - they've already assigned her an actual doctor to shadow (sitting in on actual patient consultations etc) so she'll be involved in doing real medical work. Even better, they're all going to actively support her journey - the admin girls are all fab and have taken her under their wing (she already knows the major gossip about everyone working there!) and put her onto a couple of med student groups, and the doctor she's shadowing has a daughter 2 years older whose just been down exactly the same path.

In the words of Hannibal Smith - I love it when a plan comes together!

[Gavin]

That sounds brilliant! The Cesca plan, not so much the tree surgery!

[Explosive Newt]

Where are you located in the UK? I might be able to help with medical work experience depending on where you are and/or offer uni application advice.

[Nefarious]

Where are you located in the UK? I might be able to help with medical work experience depending on where you are and/or offer uni application advice.

We're in Edinburgh, so maybe a bit far for practical help, but thank you for the offer - I'll send you a PM over the next couple of days

[Explosive Newt]

Where are you located in the UK? I might be able to help with medical work experience depending on where you are and/or offer uni application advice.

We're in Edinburgh, so maybe a bit far for practical help, but thank you for the offer - I'll send you a PM over the next couple of days

The nearest practicing doc I know to you is in Glasgow unfortunately. I’ll wait to hear from you but my immediate advice would be she keeps a diary during her work experience (within the bounds of patient confidentiality) as it will be a rich resource to draw upon when she writes her personal statement / has interviews.