Great traffic news from London.

Not quite a year since I was last writing from London - this being created as I watch a crane carrying lorry negotiating two right angled corners and taking the whole two lane road to do so. Building works and the inconvenience of associated vehicles is nothing new. But the extraordinary traffic news from London is the civility of civilian traffic!  Truly, one would think every private and taxi driver had recently retaken their driving exams in St Feliu, Catalonia.

A pedestrian just has to hover near a pedestrian crossing, then the nearest vehicle on that side comes to a halt.   Vehicles on the other side notice and are already stopped when the pedestrian crosses the midpoint of the road. Smiles all round are obligatory.  Exceptions are the working cement lorries, they dare not stop in case the cargo coagulates, and a rare few heavy goods lorries.

Indeed, I have been known to safely cross the road between pedestrian crossings using the familiar dog training gesture: right hand with fingers spread out in the 'down' gesture, face to the driver of the vehicle.   Obviously this does not work when the driver is seated above the would be pedestrian's waist height.   Equally obviously it should not be used by those slow of gait - that would be too much to ask.

Meanwhile every multi-wheeled machine has acquired a new alarm signal, frantic hooting heard almost continuously - even from buses.   It is still a miracle how buses manage to get thinner when going through improbably narrow spaces between other vehicles and their turning circle almost beats that of a black cab. I make a point of congratulating the driver whenever we have had - in my view - a more than usually difficult journey.

In the meantime, the country has come to London.   There was a dead tree trunk, not very high but very obstructive, that had to be removed.    Partly because it was in the designated dustbin space, partly because it was growing inedible but spore rich fungi and mostly because it was giving home room to all sorts of wildlife.

It took one Macedonian and one Serbian nearly two hours to demolish.    Some hefty axe work to reduce the diameter - bear in mind this was in a corner garden by cast iron railings set into concrete -

then a brief moment with a chain saw.    Then disentangle it from the growth around.

Of course, as soon as it was gone we discovered that it had hidden a small grey plastic pipe, emerging from the earth, housing two black drip feed diameter black tubes.    As yet we do not know where they come from, or where they are going to - future builders will sort that out.