I do not want to write today, Of spend foul down some thoughts on nature and accounting, and the deadline for doing that, if it is to be published, is now. What I would really like to do today is garden, or go for a walk in the bush with my dogs, or drive down to the sea and just rest and watch the waves. I wonder whether people, when they are reading this article, would really prefer to be doing something like that? Anyway, as a compromise, I have dragged my writing-table over to the windows and sliding-door, so that, when I look up from writing, I can see the beautiful trees in and around my garden: a Camphor Laurel; an enormous Liquidambar, soon miraculously to turn to the colour of fire, before it sheds its leaves and rests throughout the winter; several Eucalyptus, and a Rubber Tree - Ficus Elastica - the drain-invader. I used to hate the Rubber Tree, because of its vigorous growth (these trees are almost unkillable) and, in my fears about what its roots were invisibly doing, I dreamed about having it cut down. Until sometime during this summer, the hottest Sydney summer on record (the weather on Earth is changing, thanks to accounting - see Hines, forthcoming), I realised that the little rain forest area which I had planted and love more than any cther part of my garden, depended on this Rubber Tree for its existence. Of course, I had realised that having a big tree to shield the little rain forest was important but, since moving into my house the previous autumn, I had nurtured ideas about growing a different type of tree - something nice - beside the Rubber Tree and then, as soon as it had grown a bit, getting rid of the Rubber Tree. But, as the seemingly endless summer wore on, I began to see my dependence on the Rubber Tree. The Rubber Tree is the only barrier between the harsh western sun and the soft ferns. It takes the lashings of increasingly fierce rain and hail storms. The tree that protects my little rain forest needs to be almost unkillable, like Ficus. So I have come to see the Rubber Tree as my friend. I walk beneath its branches with gratitude for the shade and protection it gives, and often