“Where are you off to looking so shifty?”

IT is time to buy our Christmas tree.

Only this year my husband doesn’t want to buy one, he wants to forage for one. The last time he did such a thing was on Dec 13, 1992, in the third trimester of my third pregnancy, when he disappeared up into the Wicklow mountains with a friend, returning four hours later with tales of a pint in Johnny Fox’s pub and an exhausted-looking twig. I placed the twig at the bottom of the garden and dispatched him to the nearest garden centre. At which point my waters broke.

On the subject of foraging, I’ve not heard a peep out of him since.

I’m not keen on the foraging idea, not when my husband is putting it forward with his Bear Grylls face on.

“It’s not the cost of buying one,” he says, “it’s the principle.”

“What principle?”

He cannot think of one but says instead, “come on, finding one will be an adventure.”

“I don’t need an adventure,” I say, “I just need a Christmas tree.”

He gets my coat.

“Come on,” he says, putting me into it, “just the two of us,” even though this enticement has been entirely leached of any meaning since nowadays, half the time it’s just the two of us anyway.

“Where are we going?” I ask as I get in the car.

“Up by that lake in the hills,” he says, disappearing into the shed.

He reappears with saw, rope, axe and empty coal bag. He looks like Fran, from Love/Hate.

“But that’s where the Coillte forests are,” I say.

“Relax,” he says, “there are loads of trees up there that’ve self-seeded along the roadsides.”

“Self-seeded?” I bark, “who are you? Diarmuid Gavin?”

At the end of our drive we meet our neighbour, a 20 year-old Jehovah’s Witness, and his younger sister. Utterly charming, tremendously upright citizens — no sliding scale of thievery there — they are all done up in their Sunday best.

“Where are you two off to, looking so dapper?” I ask.

“Church,” he says “but my car won’t start.”

“I’ll get the jump leads out of the boot,” my husband says. We all get out of our cars and chat, while my husband opens the boot.

He hands the saw, axe, rope and empty coal bag to our neighbour. He looks at the forensic evidence and then looks straight at me. I am trying for insouciance/innocence, but think I might have arrived more at the “Fran’s dodgy mot” end of things.

“Where you off to,” my neighbour asks, “looking so shifty?”

“Up the hills, it seems, to steal a tree from the forestry commission,” I say. “Pray for our souls at church, will you?”

There is no one around up in the hills. Just miles and miles of gloomy Douglas Fir.

“This looks like natural forest to me,” my husband says. “I mean there’s no sign anywhere to say these trees belong to anyone.”

“So the trees just planted themselves in straight rows all by themselves?” I say.

“Look, there’s one,” he says.

It is small and fat and bushy. It is the perfect tree. It will fit into the boot.

“Go, go, go, now, now, now,” he shouts.

“Where?” I say.

“There,” he points, “down on the road, and shout if you hear a car coming. Keep a look out.”

I go, go, go, now, now, now.

“If I go to prison...” I hiss.

“I’ll visit,” Fran shouts lamping up into the forest with axe and saw.

“I’ll kill him,” his mot thinks, quivering behind a tree.