Top man Matt, I can picture it now. Did you manage to complete your arboriculture.
My wife is 100% paranoid about me chopping my legs off when I'm doing a little light pruning with the chainsaw. She insists on standing by me when I'm 'in action' and she went and bought me a pair of those kevlar chaps.
The trouble with the chaps is they're so thick and heavy I have to take my trousers off when I wear them.
Needless to say I look like a certain member of Village People.
However, to the matter in hand - stoopid things.
You may or may not recall that we keep chickens (bastard foxes!!!).
One weekend morning last year, I was woken from my slumber not by my darling wife with a cup of coffee, but by her shreiking that some of the chickens had "got out" and were roaming around the front garden near to the main road.
Well, to the rear of the house, the left side and across the road is open countryside, our garden being bordered at the side by thick hawthorn hedgerow.
I leapt out of bed (starkers) threw on the dressing gown (a la Noel Coward) and headed for the back door, pausing only to don some footwear - a pair of steel toe capped welly boots.
So out into the garden, in a rather fetching attire to round up the chickens, with almost complete success.
Except one of the bastards tried to force her way through the hedgerow. My wife decided a pincer movement was in order and despatched me to the other (field) side of the hedgerow. This necessitated walking out onto the main (A137) road, into the field and along the hedge.
So far, so good. I'd managed to avoid being spotted by any passing cars.
I managed to bend down and grab hold of the chicken and execute the 'how to hold a chicken action'. That is, position the chicken under your arm, holding the feet with the hens backside forward so that the little sod doesn't sh*t down your clothes - are you still with me?
I managed to just about reach the main road as a car slowly passed (complete with elderly couple out for a Sunday drive).
Unfortunately, my poorly fastened dressing gown managed to snag on a piece of hawthorn, just as the car approached, and I executed a very stylish genital 'flash'.
I can only imagine Mrs Old Dears comments to her husband - "Did you see that dear? That man with wellington boots on and a chicken under his arm has just flashed us".