On my way to the university, every day I pass by the crab-apple tree your mother had planted for your first birthday in the garden behind my house in Reading. I often look at the tree in appreciation of its growth. But on your birthdays I stop by it and reread the little bronze plaque attached to the brick parapet in front of the tree. “Dorian’s crab-apple tree,” I read over and over again, “for his first birthday on June 19, 1993.” I know exactly what the text says, but I still read it ever anew. Sometimes, when there is no-one around, I read aloud. When I stopped by the tree this morning, I marveled once more at its size. Now it is almost twice the height of the bushes that used to cramp it in the early years. Its branches are spreading out evenly, and its leaves have pushed out of the surrounding shadows. Ten years after it was planted as a sapling, but actually closer to your own age, it has some way to go still. I guess it will grow by about a third before it reaches maturity. I hope you will come to visit it yourself whenever you are in London. If you visit in the Fall, you will be able to taste of its humble fruit, as well. For some reason I feel the tree will appreciate your visits. Now that there are just thirty days before I leave Reading for good, I fear the tree will soon get a bit lonely. It will miss the little family that used to live by the Abbey ruins. But it will miss you the most. It is your tree, after all.