It's down!!
After a windy night on Monday the treeswingboys decided to go and check on the branch to see if it had naturally fallen down. We entered the dark wilderness, just as the dog walker was coming out. We were anxious to see the treeswing tree and whether there had been any new developments.
We walked up to the treeswing area, shining the torch at the tree. To our surprise the branch had gone from the tree. As we got closer we could see a big dark shape on the treeswing slope. We shone the torch on it, the whole branch was lying across the treeswing slope. It was wedged in the roots of the tree and resting on another tree. The tree must have snapped off the little branch, that is like the first level on the treeswing tree, as it was now only about a foot long.
There is about a metre of the bottom part of the branch still attatched to the tree. This will need sawing off and themn covering with a board. It isn't too obvious that it was sawn, it looks half natural half sawn.
We had brought the rope, so we tied it to the bit stuck in the root. It was heavy and really stuck. We went back to the car and got some gloves and the hammers.
We hacked away at the end that was stuck. After about 10 minutes of smacking it we tried moving it. I started to budge. Then we heard a dog barking. We had made a bit of noise hitting the branch. We deployed to a safe location, to wait until the dog went. The barking didn't seem to change position, so we went back.
We packed up the tools, in case of a muggle ambush. We then started to move the branch. Nh pushed down from the top and Benniboy pulled it down from underneath. It slowly slid down a bit. Then it got stuck on another root. We managed to get it a bit further. In total it was about a metre furhter down the slope. We left it at that, as it was becoming too dangerous, we were sure there were muggles about.