Kitchen Update : The Sequel Part 2

After the tree people left yesterday afternoon, as Mum and I enjoyed the sun streaming onto the patio...

(as opposed to "Before the tree people came, as Mum and I sat in the darkened kitchen resenting the dense, sun-blocking canopy of bay leaves outside, with its teeming community of spiders and insects...")

...and talked with renewed enthusiasm about the next steps, my thoughts, after 22 days without a kitchen, naturally fell once again upon the topic of Caesarstone and when our benchtops might be installed.

A couple of quick calls led me to Vince At-the-Factory who advised that there is a good chance they will be coming on Saturday morning.  Saturday morning!  That is, as I type, tomorrow.  Tomorrow!

Of course we have to wait for confirmation which will come today. 

I live in hope.

Chainsaw anybody?

Encroaching on Suffocating the verandah, at the back of the House at Porter Street, is an appalling tree.

Poppy on the armchair wards off any interloping possums who've come to  ravage
Mum's new ornamental capsicum.

I never conceived of such deep antipathy for leafy, green goodness, especially not the EDIBLE leafy green goodness of a bay tree, resplendent with enough bay leaves for a nation's generation of sauces, stews and soups.


However abhorrence is what I feel, and I have no desire to put lipstick on THIS pig.


The bay tree works as a [claustrophobic] screen between us and our own fence, which is at least 1.8m from the rail and beyond that, our neighbours. 

Underneath.
The space between the tree and the fence
where dwells the pool filter.

A family of trunks to the left (wedged in by yet another ugly, horrible pencil pine) extend across the 5 or 6 metres of balcony.

The monster's trunk.
There's a "workshop" under the verandah,
rendered useless due to lack of light, due to the dense canopy of leaves.
Oh, and there's more planks of wood under here too...

The beast is unarguably out of control.

The canopy inspired by the Amazon Basin

My urge is to remove the thing altogether, replacing the screening element with clumping bamboo.

Fargesia Robusta : photo copyright Noah Bell, Bamboo Garden

And/or doing something along these lines

and if its possible, relocating the very VERY well established jasmine to "stink it up" as Milo so lyrically puts it.

The jasmine currently owns the railing on the south side of the balcony...

I swear, the place is a jungle.