D.W. Oliver Tree Services LTD, Manton, Marlborough (2026)

28/02/2026

DWOTS Blog 354
Disappointingly, Devizes Young Farmers were beaten by Chippenham Young Farmers 7-3 in a nail- biting rugby match. I didn’t bite my nails because I stayed at home and drank beer in the dark, but Dougal won ‘Best Player’ which more than makes up for the score.
The family success continues: Flopsy got a badge for swimming, The Rabbit can walk, I sold a cheeseboard and Winnie found her favourite bucket which had blown away in the wind.
“I’d like a new wheelbarrow,” she said wistfully when I asked what she’d do if our lucky streak continued and we came into some money.
“A blue one,” she added, filling the silence as I contemplated her hopes. It’s not been long since I repaired her current fleet of barrows, keeping them on the road (field) for the current manure season, but I suppose we all dream, don’t we?

Lord Dave.

23/02/2026

DWOTS Blog 353
So far, I’ve spent 2026 doing more Yins than Yangs (again), or maybe it’s the other way around I’ve never known which are the good ones.
It started with Manuary, which I spent drinking Port and lager, but I couldn’t think of a hilarious adaptation of February, which was really just an extension of the first month.
Anyway, Winnie’s gone into overdrive doing craft fairs and placing lovely Treebitz things in farm shops. I’m going to try and do a ‘tag’ to the main new outlet-Helen Browning’s Farm Shop-apparently The Rabbit and Flops are devotees of the ice cream there.
This week’s photo is of Flopsy helping me teach the bears Norwegian-Mole Rat has fainted (next to the blackboard) and the other bears look disinterested apart from Ugly Badger (to the far end) who is brilliant and already knows how to say ‘horse’ in Norsk.
I’m hoping to ‘Yang’ a bit in March and create some more wooden things, I’m going to miss Manuary though…

Lord Dave.
PS: Dougal is playing in a rugby match with Devizes Young Farmers on Friday, I don’t know where, but please cheer them on-in Norsk or Moonraker (or both).

13/01/2026

DWOTS Blog 352
Despite some sad news that isn’t mine to tell and the longest duration of a cold in the history of such, I’ve managed to keep my chin up by lunching regularly with The Rabbit (see photo) and Flopsy.
Meanwhile, my bank and I managed to stop one of my cards working.
“Go to an ATM and reactivate it,” suggested a kind Scottish lady who only took twenty minutes to answer the phone.
I hopped bravely and illy onto my bike and having passed my old bank-which is now a bakery- I tried to reactivate my card in the ‘ATM’ which is a new word for a cash machine, if you didn’t know.
The ATM refused to do it.
I cycled illy (but bravely again) home and rang another lady (twenty-five minutes) who said that she would activate my card but that I needed to go back to the ‘ATM’ to double-up with the re-activation.
“I don’t want to,” I said tearfully.
“Would you like to make a complaint?” she asked.
I did, but when the complaints lady from south Wales admitted they’d made an error I went in too high with my bid for compensation.
“One million pounds is too much for your inconvenience,” she said, in a really quite beautiful accent, adding that the delay in the phone system and the second mistake did merit some redress, but not at that level.
“Half a million?” I ventured, adding that I might get knocked off my bike as I was so poorly and adding that I was pretty peeved they’d turned my bank into a pastry shop.
“Still not within my power,” said Julie.
“How about a hamper?”
The complaints lady said that I had two legitimate complaints, but the one about the bakery wasn’t valid, though I could still claim something.
“Two complaints is two hampers,” I pressed.
“No, you can have twenty-five pounds, we don’t do hampers.” She was adamant.
We argued a bit, me saying the money was nice, but a hamper said so much more and that next time I was going to raise two complaints on separate occasions, therefore getting £50 instead of £25.
However, I think that I might have a ‘No more recompense for Dave’ marker on my name now.
Still, if anyone else has to wait too long in a phone queue it’s worth asking Julie for £25, just remember to start high and work your way down.

Lord Dave.

06/01/2026

DWOTS Blog 351
Finding myself unexpectedly in charge of some tree men this morning I ventured out into the elements with a terrible illness.
Anyway, feeling a bit rubbish and unused to this level of responsibility I decided that rather than try and tackle anything too demanding we could do a rural craft-charcoal burning.
The photo came out so well that I decided to Facebook it.
I can’t be funny today because I don’t feel like it but enjoy the photo of Dougal’s men.

Lord Dave.

23/12/2025

DWOTS Blog 350
The headline news regarding farming in Britain has made me very happy, despite being more cheeseboard than turnip.
Anyway, it gives me the excuse to put up a happy photo of a happy day I’ve already talked about.
Thank-you to all Dougal’s loyal tree customers, to the readers of the DWOTS nonsense and to all the Treebitz supporters and helpers, as well as everyone who cheered at the T.I.T day on Sunday, we are grateful.
Happy Christmas and if my wife reads this: When is it going to be okay to start on the Christmas cheese?
Happy Christmas again, I just can’t say it enough!

Lord Dave.
(Photo credited to someone from Devizes Young Farmers)

20/12/2025

DWOTS Blog 349
Dougal and I will be T.I.Ts tomorrow-or at least in one.
It’s the Young Farmer’s ‘Tractors in Tinsel’ parade and despite being neither of those things myself (young or a farmer), I’ve insisted on having at least 50% of the glory, sharing the ride with Doog.
If you’re pro-tractors, pro farmers, pro-Christmas and pro-having enough food to eat, then support the event by cheering and waving a bit.
Earlier in the week-pre tractor fever- I was in the Marlborough swimming pond where I regularly treat fellow swimmers to a life coaching, usually spontaneously and uninvited. It’s a mixture of lifestyle tips mixed with dietary hints and a bit of philosophy thrown in:
“Hi, did you know that mince pies go well with German lager, be happy and come to St Peter’s and buy a reasonably priced festive cheeseboard,” that sort of thing, all whilst attempting variations on breaststroke, front crawl and my very own ‘freestyle’.
By 9;30 am on Friday I was- for some reason -completely alone in the pool and was half-way through a particularly impressive width when the lifesaving person asked me a question. Unwilling to pass up the opportunity to issue a quick life coaching I stopped in a deep bit and tried to tread water. Despite sinking quite a lot, I managed to splutter a response-not life enhancing but replying to something about Christmas opening hours.
Then I got cramp, really, really badly.
I tried not to say ‘aagh!’ or some of the other stuff which I can’t repeat, but luckily the life saver didn’t need to rescue the life coach, and I made it ashore by myself.
All ended well and I’ve made a real-life T.I.T (see photos c/w Freyja, Lily and Lord Chudley), as well as the more literal one ‘of myself’ in the swimming pond!
See you tomorrow I hope,

Lord Dave-som elsker jul!

29/11/2025

DWOTS Blog 349
Winnie was in the kitchen on Thursday tucking into a fry up.
“There’s some toast if you want it,” she said, chomming down a fried egg and pointing at a burnt slice of bread hanging out of the toaster.
“What have you got?” I asked, emphasising the ‘you’ as much as I could.
“Full English, all the trimmings.”
“Is there any butter-for the ‘toast’?” I asked, eyeing up her sausages and scraping a layer of soot off my own lunch.
There wasn’t.
I went back to my query at the bank, opening up a page on the computer that suggested a Chatbot could help.
‘A large sum of money I transferred abroad has gone missing, it left my account, but the recipient hasn’t got it’ I typed, chewing on a mouthful of carbonised wholemeal.’
‘I understand’ lied the A.I, ‘you are requesting a new chip-n-pin, is that right?’
‘No’ I answered, keeping it brief, to the point and wondering what a chip-n-pin was, possibly a bit like fish-n-chips I thought feeling hungry. I listened to Winnie in the kitchen throwing a couple more rashers onto her plate and waited impatiently for the Chatbot to catch up, it was after all quite a simple message.
‘Have you lost your card whilst travelling abroad?’ it asked irrelevantly, adding that it could certainly help with that.
I told the Chatbot it was thick, asking it if it knew what the ‘I’ stood for in A.I, but it didn’t. Is being an ether based non-entity a ‘protected characteristic’? I wondered, aware now that it is confusingly illegal to use the word ‘bald’ and therefore possible that it might also be discriminatory to call my Chatbot stupid.
Instead, the non-entity threw in the towel and handed me over to its ‘human colleague’.
He/she typed that I’d need to ring on Monday but in the meantime I could ‘massage them at any time using terms’.
I don’t know what this means and I’d really like to go to the bank branch in Marlborough, but I don’t think a ‘flat white and stone baked Ciabatta’ are going to help.
This week’s photo is of Winnie, replete and ready for custom at the Ramsbury Brewery Christmas Fair today. I’ve made lots of lovely things for nice human beings and nothing at all for my stupid Chatbot-it doesn’t deserve it.
Lord Dave.

14/11/2025

DWOTS Blog 348
I was at the St Peter’s Craft Fair last Monday when a lady appeared and unwrapped two wooden, hand carved chess pieces.
“Can you make two of these to replace the ones we lost?” she asked.
I didn’t hesitate,
“Yes,” I said, wishing immediately that I had hesitated. I literally had no idea how to do it or what wood to use, I don’t really have the right tools, and I lack artistic talent (St John’s art exam 1979).
After about six hours in my shed-minus two minutes of remembrance- I’d made a pawn that looked exactly like Jimmy Saville, so I started again. By Sunday night I had another chess piece that resembled Jesus, a big improvement on the first one but not really what the lady asked for. My third attempt was the spitting image of Liam Neeson, I couldn’t have carved a better effigy if I’d tried.
But the lady hadn’t asked for the film star, God’s eldest son or a disgraced BBC disc jockey. The last pawn I completed late into the night reminded me too much of a former employee, so I abandoned the project and started again in the morning.
I did well at Penguins on Monday, notching up enough lengths to justify that day’s excess of crisps and was pleased that an elderly swimmer took the time to praise my patriotic water pants, so it was with renewed vigour that I set about the task.
By lunchtime I thought I’d cracked it and started celebrating Christmas early by playing ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ on my telephone. It’s a good tune, us Santaists like an early start in the run up to Jesus’s birthday (and Santa’s of course), but Winnie spoiled the beauty of the moment by eating a bag of cheese and onion French Fries too noisily.
Anyway, back on the Treebitz frontline I finally finished.
I’m not an artisan, but at least the final result doesn’t look like Jesus, Liam Neeson, an ex-employee or Jimmy.

This week’s photo was of the carvings, but after three day’s reflection, a fair few laps of the Marlborough pond and quite a lot of crisps, I think the ‘works of art’ might be rubbish so instead I’ve posted a picture of Rosie enjoying storm Claudia, (some rain), from the windowsill.
I’m at St Peter’s the last three Mondays before Christmas and Ramsbury on Nov. 29th so come along and enjoy the run up to Jesus’s birthday* by purchasing a wonderful hand-crafted wooden spoon, coaster or cheeseboard.
*(And Santa’s.)
Lord Dave.

07/11/2025

DWOTS Blog 347
Artificial Stupidity, not ‘Intelligence’.
AI has stolen my ‘World’s Most Northerly Oak’ story and embellished it, used the wrong photo, adding facts from other articles (also stolen from me) and made a mockery of my heroic feat. I’ve written to Google twice, but I don’t think they care.
Also, on my mobile telephone I sent a message to the relative of someone poorly who I visit, and AI substituted the phrase ‘had tea with’ with ‘had s*x with’!
I have no idea what the poor fellow’s sibling will think of me, but I’d advise you always check texts before sending or risk your reputation-don’t trust AI. Worse still, vandalism of signage in the GWH caused me further horrible embarrassment which I’m not going to talk about here.
Meanwhile, at Marlborough swim pond I started chatting to a fellow Penguin about shoes, when she turned to me and said,
“My goodness don’t you ever sound like David Beckham.”
I smiled proudly, then remembered that he has a sort of warbling effeminate intonation but when I asked if there were other similarities the lady just said no. So, I’m not a pin up or a super fit athlete, model and businessman, but I do have a horrid voice?
Undaunted, (actually I was a bit daunted), I changed into my union flag swim pants and punched out a successful swimming session, spoiled afterwards as always by eating too many McCoy’s Ridgers. I worked out you can eat one packet for every four lengths, that’s a lot of crisps for an aqua athlete like me, but I’ll save some for Flopsy as well because she has her first ‘Junior Penguins’ today.
The Oare Christmas Fair is on 28th November, the Ramsbury Christmas Fair follows on the 29th and I’m going to be there as Treebitz, using female family members to sell lovely hand-crafted wooden things so please come along and buy a spoon, or something.

Lord Dave.
Photo is of Flopsy doing something athletic and the exact number of crisps it takes to rebalance my calorific expenditure from swimming today-impressive eh?

25/10/2025

DWOTS Blog 346
Earlier, in the cold darkness of this winter morning my wife wrapped herself in an old goat rug and ventured into the fog, quite possibly never to be seen again. There are Ferrero Rocher chocolates in the special cupboard, but I realised too late that she’d forgotten to stow them in her favourite bucket, to feed Hysteria, Dumbo and the horse that isn’t ours and therefore can’t have a comedy name.
“Will you be back in time to load the Land Rover with ‘hand crafted, locally sourced wooden products, uniquely designed for the discerning Marlborough housewife’?” I asked, realising the Treebitz sales slogan might need trimming down a bit.
“Yarp,” she said, pulling a hand knitted hessian jerkin over her bobble hatted head.
“Because it’s the MacMillan Charity fair at St Peter’s Church today,” I added, wondering whether I’d spelled ‘MacMillan’ correctly in my head, despite it being a verbal announcement.
“Yarp,” said the wife from the Pewsey Vale, who’d learned the phrase from her favourite film.
“Don’t get lost in the fog.”
“Naaaaah,” she said, and was gone…
All being well she’ll be there, with at least one daughter and the mighty Freyja Rabbit to sell the aforementioned loveliness, along with other people who also trade their beautiful things, so please go along to support the charity.
And me.

Lord Dave.
PS: If anyone spots a nice cushion today, I think we need a new one, Rosie redesigned the soft furnishing accessory in the photo.

08/10/2025

DWOTS Blog 345
Following the example set by Gwyneth Paltrow and Rishi Sunak, I decided yesterday that I’d try a radical approach to my health by changing my diet. Rather than eating mung beans and sand (like the actress) I thought I’d go the whole ex-PM and not eat anything at all for twenty-five hours, (ex- PM Sunak, not Johnson!)
It’s holistic I think, I’m not entirely sure what that means but fasting is also meant to be spiritual. I, however, didn’t think about Jesus at all during my longest day, because I became obsessed with the idea of lasagne and whether there would be any blackberry and apple pie left at the end of my health campaign.
During the fast I drank twelve cups of tea, had eight strong coffees, a few beers and nothing else, but rather than feeling cured of various ailments I just felt hungry, slightly sad and a bit weak. I was halfway through my Wednesday session at Marlborough Penguins and had nearly completed my first width when I became dizzy.
I clung to the rope that stops bald men from interacting with us Penguins and tried not to catch the lifeguard’s eye.
“Are you alright?” asked a lady who had been swimming non-stop for the entire half hour and seemed to be able to hold a conversation, swim and do her hair at the same time.
I pretended to be doing some exercises and gasped something back but eventually made it back to the shallow end and then home where I choked on a cheese sandwich because I was eating too fast.
I can’t write too much today because I’m still not back to full strength, but I have a choice of photos this week:
1. Flopsy
2. Dougal’s good tree work
3. A bloke with sideburns in Pewsey who seems to be holding a large carrot, possibly a prize for having such good facial hair- (look it up on Man-Tube)
(Flopsy won, Dougal’s picture won’t upload, and it might be illegal to publish the vegetable winner).
Lord Dave.
(It did upload in the end and Flopsy vanished).

D.W. Oliver Tree Services LTD

28/02/2026

23/02/2026

13/01/2026

06/01/2026

23/12/2025

20/12/2025

29/11/2025

14/11/2025

07/11/2025

25/10/2025

08/10/2025

Address

Telephone

Website

Alerts

Contact The Business

Shortcuts

Share