The tree comes down...

It was very sad this morning when the tree surgeons arrived to fell our beautiful, but very tall, Eucalyptus. I'm not sure how tall it actually was, but it towered over the house and when the men came out to look at it before giving us a quote, they said that if we had a bad storm it would have fallen anyway. What made it worse was that the trunk had split into two separate trunks, which increased its chances of coming down...on top of our conservatory!

The men from Wilby Tree were very good at dealing with it, cutting down the larger branches before reducing the height of the trunk. We watched them as they worked and it was fascinating. There were three of them - one up the tree (the most experienced, I guessed!), a young man on the ground in our garden who had control of the rope and a woman who worked outside our garden taking all the branches and logs away.

Within two hours it had all been done, with very little fuss and mess. They did an excellent job. We now have so much more light in our back garden, although the birds did look a bit confused when they returned!

All gone!

Keith had asked for a couple of slabs so that we could make a house number plate from them, which I thought was a lovely touch and something we could keep as a reminder of the tree. They left us seven slabs of wood so after they've dried out we can get our number etched onto the wood and I also plan to make one into a cheeseboard. 

Our idea is to take out the Hibiscus which is in the corner, plus all the other shrubs and have just one tree there, perhaps a flowering cherry or something similar. Something that won't get too big!

Before going to get Sophie from work, we popped over to the Weston Favell centre to go to the bank and we had a quick coffee in Costa. My parents were there, and had been to work to see Maureen and Polly, so we had a chat with them before dashing off to collect Sophie. I then took Sophie and Keith home before starting work...I didn't want Keith having to wait for ages if I was late again!

As it turned out we left on time and it was bliss to get home, pour a glass of wine and have a game of cards in the conservatory. We haven't done that for a while!