Rain. Rain. Rain.
And wind.
I dreamed the house had been washed away. Must have been all the rain and wind in the night. It's become suddenly autumnal here, the leaves are turning and it's almost cold at night now.
We've been doing the back-to-school shopping, of which there seems to be a lot this year. School has tightened its uniform code. Good in some ways, but silly in others.
Everybody round and about is having their trees felled or radically cut-back. We're supposed to get planning permission as it's a conservation area. I haven't seen any notices, but both the culprits this week are people who've moved here from away. Maybe they don't know...I haven't the energy to take it up with them at the moment, although I'm sure someone will.
I know there will now be more light to the properties concerned, but they look so stark, and no re-planting of alternatives ever seems to be done. Our over-the-road neighbours cut down a lovely old tree at the front in the early spring. Because they didn't like it. There's now just a space in the garden by the front gate.
The summer we moved in here, 2007, we got back from a weekend away to find all the trees between us and next door had either been felled or pollarded. He swore this had been on the cards for a long time, but the people who sold us the house didn't know anything about it.
I just think they took the opportunity of our moving in, and hoped we would be pleased by the improvements. We were not, but chose not to make an issue of it. As the trees were technically growing on his side of the fence, there's not much we could do. The odd thing is that it was our house being overshadowed, not theirs.
