Country diary: these trees have become part of the family

Stamford, Lincolnshire: We share our garden with this elderly couple and I breathe a sigh of relief when they burst into leafI know these two well. There they stand, side by side, rain or shine - stoic through the seasons, resolutely inseparable. We share a garden and, as I would any elderly couple, I check on them, watch them for change - and trouble myself by imagining what life would be like if we lost them.Trees do that when you have them close. They become a part of your family. Beneath the horse chestnut, mine have camped, collected conkers, made leaf piles tall enough to disappear into. We've hugged it, climbed it, studied it, sometimes worriedly. I breathe a sigh of relief when the horse chestnut bursts into leaf every March, afflicted as it is with a leaf-mining moth - nothing more serious, not yet - that turns its leaves brown earlier every year. Continue reading...