A new forest or money for the NHS?

You can choose the wood and the area amount, but not the particular place, gillybob.
They send you a certificate with OS grid references.
That's how I know about the Great North Forest, because it was part of it.

The problem with even small tracts of woodland, as Monica says, is that they have to be managed to some extent. The wooded areas in our country park were getting a going over on Wednesday when we were walking round. It’s surprising that since it was established in 1983, although the trees that were planted are now quite large, they are still not what you would call mature specimens. Thirty five years is not a long time in the life of a tree.

Oh good, I was beginning to think that it was just us who used the word 'punny'.

You can buy individual trees, too, through the Woodland Trust, perhaps when a DGC is born or to mark some other occasion.

punny is a word well used in our family.

I much prefer to think of it as a big fat slightly browned home cooked chip with lashings of vinegar served with bread and butter. OMG I’m making myself hungry.

How lovely Durhamjen. I didn’t realise you could do this.

It’s meant to be a chip ‘out of’ the shoulder really I think, but fish ‘n’ chips sprang to mind.?
Or it could be a really heavy chip of wood.....who knows? Although somebody on GN may bother to google it.

It must be just us then, we say 'Oh, that was very punny' meaning a funny pun.
I blame DH.

dj that is the way to do it. When several of my relatives died we asked for donations to the Woodland Trust, rather than flowers.

Or a cross breed word?

punny wassat *Jalima^? A pun or funny?

I haven’t got a chip on my shoulder lemon promise
I was thinking of wood chips and thinking it was punny.

gilly fair enough, but some have not only a chip, but the fish and mushy peas as well!

After my husband died, we bought a half acre in his name.
No plaque or seat or anything, but there is a beautiful sculpture trail in the wood and the wildflower meadow. His part of it has masses of bluebells every year. It's in Gateshead postcode, but is part of Hedley Hall, just North of Beamish.
We've seen deer track down to Ridley Gill there, but haven't seen deer yet.

I haven’t got a chip on my shoulder lemon promise. just saying what a lot of Northerners think.

Most of the ostensibly 'eco' furniture makers are using timber from managed woodlands where replanting and harvesting is part of the industry. The 'plant a tree' gimmick is just a gloss on a process that is renewable anyway.

Practically all our furniture is second hand to antique; donated, rescued, inherited or bought at junk shops or at auction. In most cases we are probably at least the second if not the fifth, sixth, or seventh owner. That way our share of the wood used in the furniture is very small indeed and was harvested a hundred years ago or more.

For a wood to be enjoyable it has to be well managed, otherwise it can become an impenetrable mix of brambles, nettles and dead wood.

Let’s not get into the chip on shoulder stuff of North/South divides, and I say that as a Northener.
Yes Greyduster you are right ( about those areas you spoke of) they could certainly use more trees.Farmers want sheep there, but there is still a case to be made for wooded areas.

It’s all fine if it benefits the South though Durhamjen. No price is too high, no forest too dense, no wildlife to precious.....

I hadn’t realised that some manufacturers of wooden furniture actually do this. They are to be congratulated.

On a separate note, my DH and I have always said if we won the lottery we would love to buy a wood. Just to leave as it is and enjoy the beauty of trees and wildlife.

Ancient woodland, as well.

www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/get-involved/campaign-with-us/our-campaigns/protect-ancient-woodland/

Gillybob, my bed's an Ecofurn one.

"What really makes Ecofurn wooden bed frames extra special is the endorsement received by Tree Aid, a charity focused on supporting some of the poorest villages in rural Africa through forestry-related projects. Alongside other fundraising by Ecofurn, 10% of Ecofurn's profits are donated to the charity who are helping more than 450,000 people. "

I think it's quite funny that May has forgotten the number of trees and woods they are digging up to put HS2 in their place.
Sorry if anyone else has said that while I've not been on GN.

Apparently a "forest" used to be a hunting ground, "an area of unenclosed countryside, consisting of a highly variable mixture of woodland, heathland, scrub and agricultural land." . So there were forests with few trees but lots of scrub and undergrowth. The New Forest is one which is still partly that kind of forest.

An interesting account here - www.worldwidewords.org/articles/forest.htm

Those wild tracts of moorland will have their own eco-system which may well be unique and could be destroyed if they try to introduce alien species.

Doesn't Chris Packham want to re-introduce wolves into Scotland? Well, somewhere north of Bristol to the Wash, anyway.

Scurrying back, after that wild diversion, to the subject of the forest project, it might just be me but has anyone looked at the topography of the land between, say, Halifax, Bradford, Leeds and Manchester? Large tracts of wild moorland that don’t support trees of any sort because of the lack of soil and howling winds. There are pockets of fertile resistance, but largely this seems to be the case. If I am wrong, perhaps someone who lives there will let me know. I am genuinely interested. If it is so, it seems that joined up forests and joined up thinking don’t go hand in hand.

At this point, I need to add that we spent five very happy years living first in outer London and then in an Essex village and we still have friends (and our god son) who live in the South and we love them all dearly ?! They do tend to keep a whip and a chair handy when we go back to see them, though!