When kiwis turn sour

Remember when I was so excited about the kiwi tree at Fox Corner? It was pretty high on my list of reasons to take the flat. Well, I don't love it quite so much anymore.

TLOML loves to chop things down in the garden. This usually works well. I like to buy things, plant them, and water them. He likes to chop, prune, and mow. But for a while I was urging him to go easy on the kiwi.

'It's so pretty', I said. 'I love those creamy yellow flowers'.

Sadly it turns out, living with a kiwi is not all it's cracked up to be. The kiwi is a devious plant. It is aggressive, multiplying in volume tenfold every week. It has completely obscured the windows of the noisy boys who live upstairs, and is making a bid - via a snaky tendril - for our neighbours across the alleyway. It blocks all the sunshine from TLOML's office and has completely mugged what we think would be a nice baytree, if only we could see it through the kiwi vines. And since we have been told the fruit is inedible, the payoff is poor.

So TLOML went nuclear on it.

And for 24 hours afterwards, I enjoyed those creamy yellow flowers in a tightly confined space. This is, it transpires, the best way to enjoy a kiwi vine.