One of the things that attracted us to Merryhall was the trees. Two enormous Sycamores which must be a couple of hundred years old and tall enough to reach the stars on a clear night. The cottage dates back to 1750 and just when did the aeroplane seeds come down to earth one rainy Autumn day with a hooly blowing?

As attractive as they are, there are a couple of downsides which have weighed almost as heavily as the timber itself. The seeds can be poisonous to equines, although Donkeys are not thought of as one, they can still die of ingesting mouldy seeds. Two sizeable branches have come adrift before we moved here, and in the recent winter gales we have been nervous of more branch falls; although they are 30 metres from the house, that is still relative touching distance, and an insurance company looking for loopholes in a policy might determine that it was invalid.

It has been painful since we commissioned Sean the timber to fell them knowing that one morning, just about now, their destruction might be about to begin, and now it is happening. Do plants feel pain? I remember a radio 4 documentary detailing the growing process of a tree and how its brain turned branches into growing tips, ground branches roots and generally diverted resources into wound healing and callousing. Remarkable.