h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's been a sticking point for me for years. Personally, I love trees, but I've noticed more and more people hating them.

And what's too hate? They're big, beautiful, CO2 chomping, oxygen spewing, home and life giving entities which no one seems to have any love for these days.

My neighbour, for example, is a tree hater. She cut down all the trees in her garden, both those which where there when they moved in and those her husband planted before his death and is constantly jokingly complaining about our garden and all the trees around it. But we like trees, they were there when we moved here, they'll be there when we leave and her bullying won't persuade us otherwise. We've already taken down two which were an issue to her, but for our reasons (one had died and I bet she was responsible for that and one which should never have been there), but we certainly did not do it for her.

Today however, she had this beautiful, majestic 50+ year old tree pruned...except it wasn't. It was hacked up and may as well have been removed all together. It's limbs have been badly butchered and there are now a lot of homeless sparrows.

That tree was a big tree when we moved here, which is 21 years ago this May, and they bought the house with huge established trees around it, including those in our garden, 13 years after us.

Why buy a house with huge trees around it if you hate them so much?

In my future I would rather have trees as neighbours than people.