20101128 Pruning of the surviving elder tree in the WLA and light clean-up

It has been a very mild November. Even in these days of shifting seasons, it looks like is only early autumn.

In any case with the Friends of Surrey Square Park it was decided that after the opprobrious cutting of the other mature elder in the Wild Life Area it would have been prudent for the Friends to trim the overhanging branches of the tree.

The excuse the Council Tree Surgeon used to justify the felling was that the tree branches were dangerously projecting on the Street in response to "complaints from the public" (I cannot think of a more unintelligent excuse) so it was decided to pre-empt any possible future excuse by trimming the tree ourselves.

The Council Park Administration do not extend any maintenance to the WLA so any looking after has to come from some place else.

We were careful to remove all trimming lest they should be ground for complaints.After all this, the presence of complaints (that cannot ever be shown to preserve the anonymity of the complainer) has always be used as an handy excuse to justify anything. If one cannot examine the criticism one cannot retort!!We were doing, or at least Julian and Daniel and Alison that were doing all the hard work, something right and a neighbour showed up for support.

The WLA was in relatively good shape a light rubbish but nothing major, after all it had been cleaned recently.

Interestingly there were some trace of fox-hunting activities.A crow carcass with some signs of mauling (I believe a fox was responsible rather than a dog because to surprise a crow requires some cunning and hunting experience)

In spite of the sunshine it was cold and even if the vegetation looked greener than should have been for the time of the year frost was marking the areas that the sunlight had failed to touch.

At the end with Alison we linger on to collect the rubbish we could and gladly headed home for a well deserved hot drink.