"I think it was the wind," said Piglet. "I think your house has blown down..."

"Oh, is that it? I thought it was Pooh."
"No," said Pooh.
"If it was the wind," said Owl, considering the matter, "then it wasn't Pooh's fault. No blame can be attached to him."
With these kind words, he flew up to look at his new ceiling...
                                                                     from 'The House at Pooh Corner'

We had a tree blown down in the great winds earlier this week. I hope it wasn't the home of an Owl, though no doubt it was home to many creatures.

"Tree, road!"

We were sitting in the End Room, having elevenses, whilst the winds raged around the house and the rain lashed at the windows, when we noticed a car sitting in the lane outside our house - not parked, you understand, just sitting there. After ten minutes or so, a man got out and came to the front door. His accent betrayed him as Polish, and he said: "Tree! Tree, road!"
So we got bundled up in raincoats, and went outside to have a look, and there! covering the road almost from side-to-side was the top half of one of the trees from opposite, very dead-looking, and covered with ivy. Just as my father and the Polish man were standing round observing the mess, the postman came up in his van (which had been parked right under where the tree fell, only ten minutes earlier). They all three waded into the pile of tree, whilst the rain continued to throw itself down, and a great brown river swirled beneath their feet. My father, being the only one of the three to live close by, was the only one with a saw; so while he sawed small branches, the other two broke anything the could, and they all carried the twigs and branches up our drive and began collecting them in a pile.

Fortunately, the postman had had the sense to go first to his friend the farm manager, who lives just down the lane, and who soon arrived with a chain-saw and a couple of lads (and later with a tractor and trailer, to cart the wood away). After that the work went much more quickly, and in just over an hour the lane was free once more...