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her efforts on behalf of her son Bert, meanwhile took the opportunity to lean on the gate one day, remark how thin she thought Shantung was looking, and enquire in a lowered voice whether I knew that Mr Myburn had been complaining about 'they trees up thur'? The Myburns owned a bungalow whose garden and adjoining portion of field abutted on the top of the cottage orchard, and the four trees in question, which were in the orchard hedge, overhung a wooden shed on their property. One of my many maintenance worries had been whether the trees, which were old and gnarled, could possibly come down in a storm and cause damage for which I might be held liable – from which point my imagination carried me on to see myself faced with a large claim which I would be unable to pay. Mr Myburn would undoubtedly be in the line of fire when the shed collapsed, I'd have to sell the cottage, and the cats and I would end up living in a garret... all the things people like me are apt to imagine when so much as a roof tile comes off. The obvious solution was to have the trees taken down by an expert but I knew I couldn't afford that, so I'd done nothing, gone on worrying, and here was Mrs Binney playing on my fears.
    Â Â Who had Mr Myburn complained to? I asked. 'Everybody,' said Mrs B. encouragingly. 'If they belonged to my Bert he'd take 'em down hisself,' she added, patently confident that if I could be persuaded into selling the cottage the orchard would automatically go with it. 'He says they could fall down any time.'
    Â Â Glancing upwards to make sure they hadn't done it yet, I made my excuses, picked up Tani, withdrew into the cottage to worry some more, and that evening marched up to see Mr Myburn. I'd heard he was concerned about the trees in the orchard hedge, I told him. He said he was. Well, I volunteered, I couldn't afford to pay for them to be cut down professionally, but I was pretty adept with Charles's electric chainsaw, and if he would help me I thought I could take them down myself. How about it?
    Â Â Help? he enquired, obviously not seeing himself as a woodsman. If I cut them straight down they certainly would come down on his shed, I explained. They needed to be sawn part way through, then pulled sideways with a rope so that they fell into his field. If he would just help with the rope after I'd tied it on... He could have the wood if he liked, I added. I couldn't possibly drag the trees back down to the cottage...
    Â Â Brightening visibly at the prospect of a supply of winter logs Mr Myburn agreed, and the following Saturday morning saw me lugging an extending ladder up the steep hillside opposite the cottage to the orchard hedge; carting the chainsaw, its long cable and a can of chain oil up the same way; and bidding a soulful farewell to Tani and Saska, locked in their run with a notice on the door telling whoever it might concern whom to contact if I didn't come back – which, donning my riding hat and rubber boots and gloves (helpful, I understood, if one cut through the cable by mistake), I privately considered a strong possibility.
    Â Â I thought Mrs Myburn might provide a cup of coffee before we started, but no. Mr Myburn stood ready wearing his rubber boots and a yellow construction worker's safety helmet which he'd presumably borrowed, Mrs Myburn peered apprehensively from the shelter of the bungalow doorway, and work was obviously expected to start right away.
    Â Â With Mr Myburn's help I threaded the ladder from the top of the bank up through the intricacies of the first tree, climbed it, tied the top of it to a hefty branch for safety, fetched up the saw, primed the oil button and began cutting. Most of the branches dropped neatly into the field or over the hedge on the orchard slope. It was when I secured a long rope to a branch that overhung the shed, cut partly through it, got down and asked Mr Myburn to help me pull it sideways that Mrs Myburn sprang into action. 'No, darling!