Tree with a house in the garden

The tree directly outside the house has been adopted by our family from perhaps the first day we moved in some 17 years ago. It is a beautiful, thriving and charismatic Plane tree. About 15 to 20 metres tall, slightly crooked trunk and with a bough which in full canopy spreads across the entire frontage of the house.

The children were frantic with anxiety when the men from the Council painted an ominous cross on the trunk as though marking it out for death. We made enquiries about whether the tree was to be felled and made it plain that we would be objecting in the strongest way possible. Whether this would be a formal letter to the Council or , the physical attachment of our children around the trunk in a human shield ,we did not specify. Nothing happened either way. We, as parents, told the children that People Power had saved the tree.They were suitably impressed by such a practical demonstration of democracy and even more so by the green and ecological credentials of mum and dad.

I suspect that the cross simply signified that the tree had been accounted for in some sort of survey, a tally of what was what and where amongst tall growing things on the hundreds of miles of adopted roadways and footpaths in the management of the Local Authority.

In revenge for being so daubed in official graffitti the tree jumped out in front of the number 66 bus, early one morning, causing it to stop violently and eject a number of passengers out of their seats causing some injury. No doubt the conversation between the bus company and the council tree department was quite involved.

In the autumn months I do shake a symbolic fist at the tree as it sheds its large maple leaf shaped foliage. This thick mass of brownish, yellow and russet soon-to-be mulch always collects in the drain surround at the side of the house into which the bath/shower empties. My crude chicken wire mesh cover has consistently disappointed and many times the driveway has been involuntarily swilled down with Radox, Head and Shoulders and John Frieda products as the gully has overflowed.

It is those same pesky leaves when firmly attached to the dangly, springy boughs that keep the front of the house nicely shaded and cool in the height of summer hence my figurative damnation only.

In recent years the tree has become a nesting and perching site for a family of pigeons. Unfortunately this fact also became apparent to an aggressive Sparrow Hawk who we came across one afternoon amongst a storm of feathers and two decapitated young pigeons on the front lawn. Understandably proud of its killing spree the hawk stared  us out as we sat, shocked, in the car on the driveway as though requiring us to reverse away and pretend that we had seen nothing. Even after getting out of the car and scaring off the carnivorous bird it returned twice in an attempt to carry away its conquests but was unable to take off with either one of the plump carcasses locked in its talons.

The appearance this season of what resembles small dormant hedgehogs or baby gremlins is a rare fruiting of the tree. The growths are hairy, dense and almost pomegranate like to the seeded core and I have been expecting a few dents in the car roof from their random plummet under gravitational pull. They are perfectly round spheres and the first time they have emanated from the tree in the years in which we have co-existed.

I now have quite a dilemna.

The shallow coursing roots of the tree have snaked up through the public pathway which has been repaired periodically as baby buggies and disability scooters have encountered difficulties scaling the north face. The probing roots have now caused the front wall of our garden to fracture and sag. A ridge has also appeared like a varicose vein in the tarmac of our driveway. If it were not for a photograph taken 17 years ago of a crack in the main house wall  I would attribute this to the desire of the tree to get closer to us but in all that time the gap between bricks and mortar has remained constant. That's 1920's builders for you.

We do not want to get the tree into any trouble or draw attention to the vague wanderings of its root system but we do have some cause for concern over the damage. The tree has now, more than ever before,  taken on the persona of an elderly and much loved neighbour but getting on a bit in years and showing some senior moments. We have its best interests at heart and are prepared to work towards an amicable solution with the guardians of the tree. I have written an understanding and sympathetic note to the Council and have been given a reference number for use in all subsequent correspondence.

The number is well into the seven figures and so I do not expect anything to happen some time soon if the Council are working on a strictly consecutively numbered basis in attending to their many and varied responsibilities.