About 2 months after we moved in, a council worker dropped an official little note in the letterbox, explaining how the palms where going to be cut down as they where a danger to the electrical lines. Storm season was coming, and they would cause a large blackout if they came down in a high wind...the note also mentioned that nothing would be done without our approval, as the council needed our permission to enter our property. So I said no thanks, and when they knocked on the door just before storm season every year, I hid behind the sofa and pretended I wasn't home. This has worked for the last five years. Luckily, the palms have not come down in a storm and caused a blackout.
This year, Mr BC finally convinced me that the palms where not doing us any favours and we should get the council to cut them down for free, next time they offered. The palms where so large, their two trunks didn't offer any privacy. They didn't provide much shade. They where a magnet to fruit bats who shat all over the cars, our house and the yard. And Mr BC was sick of dealing with dead palm fronds. So, reluctantly I agreed, with the proviso that Mr BC deal with the whole thing, because I was already heart broken enough without having to liaise with the execution team.
Of course Mr BC was busy with work on the day.
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| These poor majestic palms had no idea of the evil fate lurking below. |
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| Couldn't the council just put in underground conduits? Why do we need overhead power lines anyway? |
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| The workman cheerfully took them down one frond at a time. Bastard! |
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| You can sense their horror. Well, I can. |
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| Gleefully wielding his weapon of destruction. While he whistled.. |
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| Poor traumatised bald palm. |
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| Nut sacks intact, for now.. |
First one crown, then the other, comes crashing to the ground before they get to work on the trunks. By this stage Mr BC came out to see what the fuss was about, and was a bit freaked out to see two workmen in the cherry picker, which had manoeuvred in between the power lines. I reassured him that they where obviously trained professionals, with all of the safety equipment and knowledge they needed. Why did they just ask to borrow my garden gloves, then? he replied...
Pretty soon the front garden looked like this. A sea of carnage.
Which was promptly and cheerfully cleaned away by these murderers.
We've filled the empty spaces with a water bowl and a frangipani, but their ghosts linger.
I know it.
Do you mourn plants? Or is it just me?
xx