Going, going, gone

Hmmmm. Well, as I understand it, this is an anniversary blip - 5500. So be it. I haven't managed anything particularly appropriate in celebration, I'm afraid.

Update: it's tomorrow... 

On the contrary, the story of my day would be best rendered by these pictures of the removal of a tree from the garden of the neighbour up the hill by SSEN operatives. The tree works operatives were all over the town today, doing both the urgent work on Rose Street which had been closed because of a tree that half came down and was balancing against an electricity pylon, and other scheduled work that was apparently delayed from March when it was due, because the whole team had to go over the west coast because of a storm. I think the felling of the willow on our street fell into the category of scheduled, but I'm not sure. Either way, we got no notice of a power cut, which started when I was in the middle of doing my peloton workout, which came to a sudden halt when the "show" disappeared from my iPad screen.

In the end, the power was off for about four hours, and despite L and A also being affected (their house is right by Rose Street) they still managed to make dinner for eight, as we were all due round there for supper and drinks to celebrate A's upcoming big birthday. It was a fun evening, made brighter by the power coming back halfway through dinner and before we'd had to start using candles to eat by, and it ended just into Saturday when we wound our way somewhat unsteadily back along Manse Street.

If it had been a sunnier evening, or I'd remembered to ask for the tour earlier, I would probably have got some pictures of their gorgeous, and enormous, garden. Well, it's basically L's garden. A just does stuff as and when he's told to do it in the garden, but L is the gardener. You could get our entire plot several times into their garden. Well, looking at maps on satellite view, basically four times.

The bright side of suffering the unexpected power cut and dealing with its consequences is that I'll have fewer leaves to deal with in the winter. Just the small matter of the copper beech. And since the entirety of the debris from the felled tree was put back into the neighbour's (quite large) garden by the SSEN operatives, I've decided that now might be a good opportunity to lop off a branch round the front which has been overhanging our garden for ages and which somewhat pisses me off. We can chuck that back over too, as they'll hardly notice one extra branch when they come and do a clear up in their garden, as I assume they eventually will.

For the record, this is the one rather irritating neighbour we have, up the hill, who is also responsible for the over intrusive leylandii, about which I rant quite frequently, and who has previously paid no attention to the fact that the outside of his wall on our street is often a complete mess with weeds and overgrown buddleia. The only reason that it isn't at the moment is because of the work parties that have been going around the town removing weeds from the streets.