You would think it was autumn. The leaves have turned orange and are curling up and falling off the tree. And every time the wind blows there is another flurry of leaves and the carpet underneath gets ever thicker. I wish it were autumn but sadly, it has nothing to do with the seasons and everything to do with a little moth. A leafminer.

However, this tree can consider herself lucky as it doesn't appear to be the horrible – and deadly – disease that is currently afflicting horse chestnut trees across northern Europe and where the remedy is pretty drastic. The chop. However, successive years of damage by the leafminers will leave the tree weakened and therefore more prone to that more serious fungal infection – bleeding canker.

Putih – who came and stayed with us this weekend told me that they have finally had to cut down the horse chestnut tree in Anne Frank's garden. It makes me sad.

Trees are usually rooted in their anonymity. There but invisible. But hers became an individual entity, a symbol of so many things – imprisonment, life and death, time passing. Seeing it bud and flower and watching the birds hover and fly about it's branches must have been an escape. I'm sure she swooped and flew among it's leaves and branches too. A tree is a mighty thing to a child. Kepler loves his one special tree. It is a playhouse and playmate, a tiny, insular world swirling with life and dreams. And my childhood memories of our sycamore – to us huge – that we climbed and perched in for hours makes me know that she loved and had a kinship with her tree as someone also rooted, held hostage, unable to move. It makes me sad.

Hopefully our tree will be OK. I certainly don't need it to channel my imagination. In fact, it's flowers make the white of my eyes swell up to the point where I look like someone has whacked two golf balls into my eye sockets and I hate standing on the spikey chestnuts which are everywhere. I mean if it is going to make a fruit I wish it would be one which was slightly more useful than a conker. Yes, I know, conkers have their place in life too. (Actually Kepler would love playing conkers.) But if we do have to cut it down eventually I would miss it's huge green mass. Sitting up on the first floor of the house feels like living in the tree. There would be a two dimensionality to the landscape without it.

So we are looking for a remedy. It is certainly too big to treat with chemicals. Throughout the day flocks of bluetits and coaltits peck away at the leaves so I am hoping that they will help us, even in a small way, to control the pesky leaf miner larvae, and as the leaves fall we will have to burn as many as we can so that the cycle weakens and gives the tree more chance against the parasites when it starts trying to bud and leaf next year.

Our tree is a symbol of hope and potential

Wikipedia: Anne Frank Tree
Wikipedi: leaf miner
BBC: leaf miner