Our neighbour appeared in the driveway

I say our neighbour, but really it was our neighbour's husband who lives and works up the coast somewhere near La Rochelle and comes home at weekends at just the time when I'm not around much, so I have only ever seen his car in the distance.

Anyway he had a pair of loppers in his hands and asked if he could lop a bit off our catalpa tree that was dangling its pods on their roof and tap, tap, tapping in the breeze.

We Daveys have been aware of this problem for some time but we have no ladder so it had joined the list of jobs waiting for said ladder.

Anyway he said 'Don't worry - I've got everything necessary', so he got his ladder and we started on the task together. His loppers were a bit too small, so I threw my pruning saw and "long loppy thing worked by string" into the pot and we got the basic problem solved.

He's coming again on Monday with a chainsaw, so we could see that catalpa really cut down to size. I'd like to take off the big trunk that is zooming up vertically, but that really is a job for a chainsaw. The catalpas are so vigorous in this area that I can't imagine that pruning it at this time of year will do much harm - even pruning it hard.

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