A weed is a plant in the wrong place.

The sound of chainsaws resonated across our garden at breakfast this morning. That huge, beautiful, pesky willow was being cut down! Long-term readers of this blog – how I pity you – will recall how this misplaced tree, on top of a hill on London clay a long way from the river has plagued us since we bought this house and how our late neighbour obstinately refused to do much about it except go up a ladder (in his 80s) and hack away at the odd branch with a little saw.

Today the tree was felled properly by a qualified tree surgeon, with permission sought and given by the council.

Yes, it was beautiful. Yes, a felled tree is always a sad, miserable sight, and yes my offspring years ago in their bedtime bath looked out at the dozens of green parakeets nestling in its branches for their evening squawk, but it sucked all the water away from our gardens; caused cracks in our walls and invaded our drains with its roots, affecting our insurance and building works.

It became diseased and one of those huge branches was rotten. Our house was within easy scope of a sharp gust of wind felling it. It had to go.

Our new neighbours bought the house just before lockdown and we hadn’t met them. But they seem nice and this was a very good first impression.