Shady business

In the shade of the remaining plane trees the felling started this morning. What kind of person does that job, I wonder? Cutting down healthy trees. I know everyone has to make a living, but I couldn't live with myself if I did it.

At a public meeting on Friday evening the mayor presented the new compromise plan for the trees - half of them, those on the right-hand side of the road in this picture, will be saved. The ones on the left-hand side are being cut down today. It's better than losing them all, but how sad to lose any, and how sad that this could not have been discussed before the other trees were felled needlessly in July.

We are relative newcomers to the village, having been here only eight years, and we're upset about it. People who have lived here all their lives feel much more strongly about it. This morning, within sight of the massacre, we met a friend who is in her eighties and has lived most of her life in the village - 'Ça me fait mal au coeur' (That hurts my heart), she said.