After several years of promising to do so, my neighbour has finally taken down the enormous spreading Sycamore that was in his back garden. It has been reduced to a bare stump, and the branches chipped and spread on the weedy patch at the entrance to the estate. The tree was easily 100 years old, and had no doubt lived through the demise of the old Cardonald Place Farm, the establishment of South Cardonald after WWII and the building of our own estate. It was the last of the four great trees which were such a feature of the area when I moved here nine years ago. No doubt the arguments for its removal were the same as those for the other three_ a mixture of safety and amenity. But today I feel greatly diminished by its loss.