His hand closes around mine. ‘I’d better help. We’re going to run out of trees at this rate. There are only another five-thousand-odd for you to practise on.’

‘Oh, ha ha, almost as funny as the tree puns,’ I murmur as he uses his other hand to push back the lower branches and give me better access to the trunk.

His head is close to mine and his leg is pressed against my thigh as his hand guides mine back to the tree, his fingers covering mine as he makes me hold the saw against the trunk at the correct angle and starts moving it back and forth in strokes much longer and smoother than the ones I was managing. With him in charge, the saw doesn’t catch once, and the narrow trunk is sliced nearly all the way through in seconds.

Noel holds onto a low branch to hold the tree upright. ‘Don’t push it when it starts to lean, that’ll make the bark splinter.’

He jumps to his feet to catch it, and I slide the saw through the last centimetre until the tree falls into his waiting arms and he lays it down.

The tractor is at the edge of the field with the trailer attached for the trees to be piled on and taken back to the barn for netting, before being loaded into Noel’s truck and taken to the market stall on Friday.

I’m quite proud of myself as I stand up and look at the tree lying on the ground. All right, Noel did most of the work, but still. Small victories.

With the next one, he stands at the back to support it and reaches around to hold the lower branches out of the way as I kneel down again and attempt to replicate the sawing movement he’s just shown me. The tree makes some ominous creaking noises, and the saw catches a few times, but after the longest few minutes in history, the blade finally comes out the other side and the tree falls.

Noel lays it down and gives it a not-entirely-disapproving nod.

It’s not quite the sixty seconds he can get through a tree trunk in, but it’s a start, and I move onto the next tree before he has a chance to direct me.

I’m going to have to do this on my own. I love that he’s helping me, but he’s got his own farm to run, he can’t be here all the time.

It’s fine, I tell myself. A few weeks ago, I never thought I’d get the hang of shearing trees, but now I feel like I’ve been doing it all my life.