Looking for brownie points (can you get those as a bloke?!) I did the reverse and spent easter bank holiday a couple of years back tearing up our frontage of crazy paving and 20 billion inch concrete sub-base with a pick-axe and sledge hammer. I now have a lovely green front garden but sadly not the ridiculous muscles that the weekend of graft temporarily gave me.

Back on trees and I've been really worried about what is going to happen to them all as well. We've just gone through a remortgage and the surveyor who performed the mortgage valuation insisted we have a tree report done. The nearest tree is 10 metres away, 'medium-sized' and in good condition so I considered this as overkill and the latest in a trend for surveys to be obsessed with avoiding surveyor liability rather than surveying*.

The tree report was very thorough and reported on all trees within about 30 metres of the property. Although it recommended 'tree management' in the form of cutting back and what-not in most cases it did also suggest removal might be considered on quite a few. I'd hate to think that the country's banks would start to have any say on the removal of trees, based on very small risks, just to allow someone to mortgage a house.

I should point out that I am not against the management or removal of trees that are damaging people's property (*I am a qualified, but not practicing, surveyor) but that I object to people being forced into the most drastic actions without being informed about other options which possibly aren't as quick or easy for all concerned.