Next to our townhouse in Spain there is an abandoned townhouse. A woman from South Africa bought it twenty years ago and paid cash for it. Then she died, and no relative has claimed it. It cannot be sold — Spanish law does not allow it. So it sits.

There was a lemon tree on the outside terrace. It grew the height of the house itself. When we visited each year, I picked fresh lemons from it. But it littered the terrace with leaves and rotten fruit, so the chairman of our house association cut it down to the root and covered the stump with black plastic sheeting to block the sun.

The root sent out new shoots through the plastic. The chairman cut them down. This went on for a couple of years until I told him to stop, and said I would take care of the tree myself.

Last year it grew very fast — a single fishing rod, with delicate branches laden with light green leaves. It was bending under its own weight, so I had to put in a support stake. Now it is taller than me.

The house is frozen in place, legally untouchable, slowly aging. But the tree does not care. It just grows.