Day 47: I don't be-leaves it

I offered to let Exile #2 write her own account of her Victor Meldrew day but she refused with the predictable "No I'm not taking over writing the blog just because you've got an XBOX!" :-D So you'll have to have my take on it.

This morning after I left to take Exile #3 to school the other exiles went to the social security office. The purpose of this trip was to get (if you can believe it) a letter saying that they will not give her a social security number (because she is not, at the moment, allowed to work here). The letter is required to apply for a drivers license (unless you have a social security number of course). Anyway, this slightly mad trip was made more difficult because the piles of snow had reduced the number of parking spaces and made finding one impossible. Fortunately her late stage of pregnancy and small child in the car eventually caused someone to take pity on her. After this she finally limped home with the letter to discover workmen blocking our drive with a large truck. And another large truck. And a crane.

We hadn't been expecting any such arrival.

It turned out that they were doing some tree-surgery the American way, but they paused to cut a walkway in the snow at the edge of the drive to let the residents desert the car in the street and at least walk to the house. Some time later Exile #4 attracted her mum's attention, "A tree - it's flying!" Indeed, they had pulled an entire tree out from the boundary of our house and next doors and were transferring it into one of the trucks. If only the camera had been to hand...

There aren't actually any leaves on the trees at the moment.

When I got home the remains of the tree's location had been disguised with a small fall of snow and the girls were nowhere to be seen - as you can see, but the day ended peacefully with everything in it's right place.