Spotted at the local Primary School -

My, there must be some scary teachers in there!

You see, there was this tree. An ash tree, to be precise, and its crown was huge, spreading, and full of dead wood and brittle limbs which broke off in the wind and fell on our roof, our cars and our bins … and I was afraid that one day one might fall on me, OH or one of the dogs as we walked out. And the roots were so extensive that they were beginning to push up the tarmac on our forecourt (it would be a front garden except we tarmacked it) and were almost certainly eating into the foundations.

So something over five years ago, OH contacted the farmer who owned the field it was growing in and asked him nicely if he would attend to it, and he chose not to reply. Over those intervening five years, letters have gone back and forth between OH, the farmer and our neighbour, Mr P, who actually owns a driveway running between us and that tree, and a dispute began. The farmer stated that it was not his tree. Mr P stated that it was not his tree, and we knew damn well it most definitely was not our tree, but since it was damaging our property we wanted someone to do something about it. And no-one did.

From where we were standing, it looked like the farmer’s tree, since it was growing in his hedge. Mr P pointed out to the farmer that if it was his tree, then it was also his hedge and did the farmer really want to deed him three feet of land? The farmer did not, and finally admitted it probably was his tree .. but he still did nothing about it.

Getting no joy from direct communication, we contacted his agent. His agent was very helpful, and just a few weeks ago contacted a tree surgeon and arranged for the work to be done. And so it was that yesterday, two very nice young men turned up with a truck, a chipper, and a lot of equipment which looked as if it might make a bondage fan dribble, and one of them shimmied up the tree to pollard it.

I have to say, it was fascinating to watch. The surgeon himself, a young guy who looked hardly big enough to lift a tree-pruning manual, moved among the branches like an acrobat, manipulating huge branches in one hand and nonchalently letting his chain-saw dangle from his belt, while his accomplice apprentice stood below maintaining the rope that stood between him and a seventy-foot drop and chipping the branches dropped down to him.

The work took them most of the day, because it was a big tree, but now the crown is no longer extensive, full of dead wood, or likely to brain someone. The roots, of course, are still there, but will not be growing any bigger and may even shrink a little.

I don’t like pollarding trees, but I like chopping them down even less. At least this way the stout, ivy-clad trunk is left, along with the lower branches, so that the mini-habitat is still there for the birds, small animals and insects who live in it

And next autumn’s gales will hold slightly less dread.

We get quite a few things wandering into our conservatory in fine weather, because OH likes to sit out there with the door open. Some of those things are welcome and some are not - I can usually tell if a wasp or bee has bumbled in, for instance, because of the air turning faintly blue.

Yesterday two things honoured us with a visit. One was a small bird whose presence remained undetected until it startled OH by flying OUT from just above his head. I’m not sure what colour the air turned. It wasn’t blue, but there was most definitely a change in hue .. perhaps it was pink from embarrassment.

The other was this interesting little fellow. He’s a Large Red Damselfly, otherwise known as Pyrrhosoma Nymphula, and is one of the earliest to be seen on the wing. Later we’ll get a lot of those electric blue ones that go from a static hover to about three million miles an hour in a split second, but for now, I’m happy to see this rather slower and less aerobatic fellow, because he’s a sign of spring having well and truly sprung.

I was reading I’m Having a Thought Here this morning - a blog I just discovered recently which is nicely seasoned with quotes from Pirates of the Caribbean - and the latest post is about a woman who has a memory problem.

‘Ah!’ I can hear you mutter. ‘I have one of those! Can’t remember a damn thing lately … what were you saying?’

But it isn’t that type of memory problem. This poor woman remembers everything that has happened to her since 1980. At the time, she was about fourteen years old, and she’s now forty-two. You could ask her what happened on 9th October 1986, and she’d be able to tell you. Actually, if you asked me about that day ten years earlier, so could I - Saturday 9th October 1976 was rather a grey day and a light drizzle was falling. The temperature had dropped for the first time in a famously long, hot summer, and there was a hint of autumn in the air. I was wearing a long white cotton dress with orange and yellow braid trim and a matching hat, and an awful lot of relatives turned up at our house that we hadn’t seen for yonks. But the point is, I can only remember that because it was my wedding day. Ms Price can remember her 9th October because, well, she can remember every day - what, if anything, fell from the skies, and who phoned, and where she went, and what Auntie Nora said to the postman. OK, I’m guessing about Auntie Nora. You know what I mean.

But more to the point, she can remember the joys that day brought .. also the sorrows, and any hideously embarrassing incident that might have happened. Can you imagine? What if she’d been to the dentist that day and had a root canal? She’d remember every last second of the fear, the pain, and the wobbly, adrenaline-fuelled exit from the chair. She’d even remember reaching for the aspirin as the anaesthetic wore off.

Just lately, being on the wrong side of fifty, I’ve worried a bit about my memory. I’ll be taking The Princess to do her duty as a PAT dog today, and we’ll be visiting Alzheimer’s sufferers, and well, you know … you can’t help but think. But my slight forgetfulness is actually fairly common in women my age, and I don’t sleep well, either, so that’s probably a contributing factor, and I am well aware that the ability to forget can actually be a Very Good Thing.

It’s not just the fact that I don’t remember all of the pain and grief and humiliation in my life, although that is, of course, a huge relief. I also consider it a gift that I’ve always been able to pretty much forget the content of a movie or a book. Of course, I remember the premise and a vague outline of the plot, but the details are gone, and this means I can go back and enjoy a favourite many times over before it begins to pall. Obviously, the more often I read or watch, the more I remember, because that’s the way memory works, but - just as an example - I’ve now watched ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest’ five times and I’m not tired of it yet. ‘Curse of the Black Pearl’ … guess what? I can’t remember how many times I’ve watched it, but it’s more than five, and I’d happily sit down this evening and watch it again. One of my sons, however, has an incredibly good memory and hates to watch a movie more than once because he can remember it all far too well.

It just goes to show, once again, that you can have too much of a good thing. An excellent memory is an asset, but an infallible memory must feel like a curse.