When we first arrived in this distant land across the sea, I was fascinated by the strange and beautiful trees.  Coming from Canada, I was used to our rather thin trees, trees that faced cold and impeding winters every year, and therefore it takes our oaks, poplars,  maples and coniferous trees a long time to grow.  Here it is entirely different - to quote Lance from his blog of April 2006, "We have to be careful not to drop any ripe bananas because as soon as they hit the ground, they start growing so fast that you will find yourself 10 ft ....