A 'gift' for our 26th wedding anniversary...

Got back from Calgary a week ago...

Calgary was time well spent... the meetings went very well, and our counterparts were such excellent hosts... 

On the drive back home from Takamatsu Airport, the 'Grasshopper' swayed at a corner... 

And woah, discovered the following day that the left rear tire was punctured by a nail...

Which gave me the first opportunity ever, to change a flat tire that afternoon...

But I digress...

The main story of this post revolves around our 26th wedding anniversary on 3rd April...
Years ago, I had totally forgotten to wish 'happy wedding anniversary' to my suweeto haato... wooh, that experience was frightening...
It led me to engage electronic calendars to send me reminders...
And shortly thereafter, I started to draw illustrative cards for my suweeto haato...
What do you folks think of the above illustration? :-)

And yes, the 'gift' from the heavens on our 26th anniversary...
Strong, strong, strong winds came by and swooshed across the Japanese archipelago...
Winds, stronger than that of typhoons... 
The last time this weather phenomenon happened was 58 years ago...

Our poor 'symbol' tree, (Mominoki or Japanese cypress) could not withstand the winds any longer... 
I was at the university, and my missus could only helplessly watch as the tall tree fell over, taking with it our bamboo fence...

Now, just a day before, she was commenting to me on how the tree was slanting...
I could only managed a 'hmmm'...

And for months years, she had reminded me more than once to chop the tree...
It might fall over and hit our house... she said...
(Luckily when it did, it missed our house and our car too.)

But husbands being husbands, the only logical answer from yours truly was: 'hmmm, perhaps later'...
(Lesson learned, again... listen to the wife!)

That tree was ten meters tall...
It took me two hours just to chop off the branches and free the plants (roses, rosemary, jasmine, etc...) that were trapped below...

Well, on a bright side, my missus was telling me that she wanted a Daidai 橙 sour orange (Citrus aurantium) plant in our garden...

I had said ok, and I was looking for a suitable place to plant it... a place with full sun, and a place that is nearby so that we can enjoy smelling the flagrance of the flowers...

Looks like we have found the perfect spot in the space vacated by the fallen tree... 

Thankfully, the 'unfortunate' event is not totally that 'unfortunate' after all...