Now me, I like a tree as much as the next person likes a tall sticky-up-standy-thing. But, when you’ve got an overgrown wall of 12 Leylandii, sixty feet high, blocking any natural daylight in your building, you have to take action…
Well, not straight away of course, I am British after all! I mentioned it to a neighbour first who lives below me, and he said he had the same problem. “Don’t fret pet,” he remarked, I’ve phoned the council to see if they can get a man on it. And as luck would have it, they could, so 10 months later our resident ‘tree doctor’ rushed to the scene of the blockage.
Yes, it was 23 minutes past the hour of seven a.m. precisely, when soppy bollocks turned up! I knew it was this time, because I was just about to go to bed!!! (I have a broken sleep pattern) Anyway, despite the repetitive sounds of a chain saw starting up and cut, cut, cutting everything in its path, I did nod off.
When I came too, but not it three, all was blissfully quiet, and I’d completely forgotten that the manic tree-slasher of old north London had been to call. However, after a single glance out of the kitchen, from my first floor flat, I couldn’t help but notice that something was definitely missing.
When I ‘hit the pit’ there were a dozen beautiful swaying fir trees, green as green could be. True they did block the light in two of my rooms, but all the same, they were a gorgeous and hypnotic sight on a windy day.
I looked again, at what was left of the first of the firs to the far left of the line, and it really was quite an exceptional piece of work I have to say. It as if a recently sectioned patient had been given a free pass for the day, unsupervised, and had been left in charge of the job using a Black & Decker ‘Bastard saw’! I kid you not, my Nan could have done a better job, and she died last year of ‘Raving root rot’!
In my naivety, I presumed that these beautiful garden privacy features would receive a thorough short back and sides, from top to bottom, by a skilled woodsman. How wrong can you be? This bloke was either in a rush or he wasn’t being paid enough.
Shaping the trees, it seems, was completely out of the question. And from what I could work out, he’d taken his tool of choice, and starting from roughly 20 feet down from the top, had run the chain saw back to the trunk, and carried on cutting right down to the base of the tree. So, this left tree No. 1, very, very green at the top, bald as a badger to the ground, and a nasty shade of brown to boot.
Now, on one tree, the furthest away from my flat, it didn’t look too shabby, and little rays of daylight had begun to infiltrate my lounge. Fairly happy with this outcome, I left the building and headed of to the market of great superness, returning sometime later.
While emptying the contents of my shopping bags, it was clear that ‘Psycho Sid’ had returned while I was out. There was so much daylight streaming through my windows now; I had to put on my Bipolaroids on!
And what was left of the lush wall of evergreens? Just a nasty brown mutilated mess really, with what looked like Christmas tree glued to the tops. The squirrel’s union were up in paws about it, and they’d left placards on the remaining four trees which read, “HELL NO – WE WON’T GO!” There was a strike an’ everything, and we were knee-deep in nuts for weeks!
A month later there was this noise. A noise that my subconscious wouldn’t allow me to wake up from, until it was too late to hurl abuse out of the window. A couple of hours must have passed by and I got up in my usual daze. I sparked up the kettle, looked out of window, lit the first cigarette of the day and drifted off to the bathroom for a pie and mash (slang: slash)
Well, it took a double take, and the time it takes to make a cup of tea, followed by smoking the rest of my cigarette, letting the cats out of the window to sniff the morning air, and having a casual lean on the draining board, before I realised that the ‘tree butcher’ had most definitely called again.
I believe I said out loud, “FER… FUCK’S SAKE!!!” How could it be worse, you might asked yourself? Well, you remember the top twenty feet that were left untouched by human hand or saw? Well, the son-of-a-bitch had sneaked back and chopped the lot off! I’ve got so much extra UV light in my flat now, that I can get a sun tan when I’m in bed!
Name check: Donald Findlater! (Interview on BBC24)
Bloody lucky his parents didn’t choose William as a first name!
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