T is for TREEHOUSE

I'm not a carpenter or joiner. In fact I'm not even close. Wife thinks I should be a handyman and I keep telling her that I am because I'm always just around the corner, but I guess that's not what she really means! However, over the years I have learned to hang pictures and curtain rails, put up shelves and paint with a fair degree of precision and give me a piece of wood and I can make it into something else with not too much effort, though it won't resemble anything that you would recognise. So I take my hat off to all those joiners, carpenters, wood turners and handymen who can just about do anything about the house though experience tells me that they prefer to do it in somebody else's home, where they stand a reasonable chance of getting paid for their efforts. I know quite a few husbands who can go far beyond picture hanging and shelf fixing and have even put down decking, hung doors, laid skirting boards and erected stud walls. I often browse around the old DIY stores such as B & Q or Homebase and it's not long before you begin to realise that for every one handyman there are a good dozen who are handless. But the DIY store is where they intend to put all wrongs to right, gathering paint, wood, tiles, lights, doors, shelves and all the necessary fittings for their own personal Everest attempt in the living room or kitchen. I know for I've been there and pushed the trolley on several occasions. And most of my attempts have been OK though others, rather than being out of this world are more out of sight. Take the attic for example. A few lengths of chipboard later and suddenly I can create extra storage for junk, though experience has since taught me that a bow saw is a better instrument for cutting logs than flat and wide wooden boards and that a power screwdriver might just make the job easier if not quicker.

Which is why my first really major attempt at joinery was beyond the confines of the dwelling house and as far away as possible from public view. I chose a nice apple tree when sons suggested, in the innocence all primary school children possess that their dads can do absolutely everything, proposed that I construct a tree house. Two reasons decided my choice. First, it was close to a very high hedge so nobody could see the building in progress nor view the finished product. Secondly, the tree was as far from the house as you can go, without trespassing, but still on a level piece of ground that eased the burden of carrying wood and the like to the site. We began with an old wooden pallet that sat sturdily and evenly between several thick trunk-like branches. I use the word 'we' to deflect the possible outcome as being all my own work, should it be a disaster, but also to remind me that at the outset, two sons had offered to help, though this didn't materialise in practice. A vertical frame was engineered (Oh I do love that word) and to this was attached a selection of boards to make the four sides and some thinner and wider pieces for the roof. We even managed to make two small windows with sliding shutters, though these didn't see out the first month and also a door that we had rescued from an old kitchen cabinet. By the time it was all finished, the whole construction stood about one and a quarter metres high and just about the same length in every other direction and with the addition of a little piece of carpet and a portable battery powered light, it was almost liveable. We even prepared breakfast in it one morning, using the power of a little camping gas burner to boil water and eggs and for a long while, a few Beanos remained hidden under the carpet.

I took a walk past it the other day. All the trees that surrounded it are now gone, the hedge is cut much lower and there is a good chance that a man on a racing ostrich would spot it on his way past, though I don't imagine he would add it to the wonders of the world, except maybe in wondering how it has stayed up for the past ten or twelve years. I must admit it is not in the greatest state of repair at present, with the roof now somewhere in the adjacent field, one of the windows rather bigger than before and a new low rise window appearing near the base at the front. But the door still closes as good as new! Maybe if I'd paid a bit more attention to it over the years, it wouldn't need such a massive restoration programme though I don't think it's worth entering in that BBC programme. Or maybe???????

Neglect is a terrible thing. There is no doubt that the ruins that we so often love to visit in our establishment of links with the past, are usually in that state because of neglect and there comes a point in almost every ruin where there is no longer the possibility of restoration and the best thing to do is to pull it down. Of course some have been preserved in their present state but never can they return to what they once were and I guess our tree house, in some small way, is teetering between the two. The trouble with neglect is that too often it happens with the full knowledge of the person who could do something about it, whether it be failing to visit the doctor, not mending a broken fence, not eating properly or healthily or sticking our heads in the sand over some issue. But to neglect our spiritual relationship is to lead to ruin for ever. And it's so easy to do, because, like physical neglect, it's a gradual thing, but before too long the signs are obvious. In Psalm 119 verse 16 the writer says, 'I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word.' The Bible has stories about people like Saul, Samson and Judas who gradually neglected their beliefs and God's word and were left with ruined lives. The good news though is that God can restore even the most ruined life for His glory and make us like new creatures. Now that's not something to neglect.