It's been a strange day.
The man next door has cut down half his hedge and now we can see much more of his lovely garden, which is full of walnut trees, cherry trees and silver birch.
That said, I don't really care about hedges and trees in other people's gardens.
I prefer to get up early, do my facial exercises and go looking for the parrot that kept me awake all through the night. In fact, I think there might be two of them.
Then, I have breakfast in the garden and wonder when the man next door will cut down the other half of the hedge. It's a laylandii, apparently. There are websites that sell only laylandii - I looked.
Breakfast is difficult. The milk is not cold enough. The muesli is too sweet and the coffee gives me stomach ache. I think about the first muesli. It was Alpen, I think. Like sweet sawdust, I remember. My muesli is organic and wholesome, with lots of big bits of nuts and seedy things. The milk is homogenised and will, I'm told, block my arteries much better than pasturised.
At the end of the hedge, there is a huge laylandii. It hangs over our roof and the chimney for our wood burner. My husband wishes the man next door had started at this end of the hedge.
After breakfast I go to the next village to get bread and somebody coming the other way smashes off my wing mirror. The sound is amazing. I see them stop and then drive away. I tie the mirror back in place with some string and wonder how much it will cost to get a new one.
My husband says that he is glad he didn't do it.
The man next door has started up his chain saw again and we peer through the window at his progess. One hour later, he has finished. And the large tree at the end is still standing.
My husband hopes it falls on him.
