My Childhood Garden Part II

A Memory of Shamley Green.

Some months later, how long I cannot remember for the passing of time means little to a child, except that it always seemed so long for things to happen; but I found myself again seated in the back seat of another rented car being driven again by my father with my mother sat beside him smiling and happy. This time the weather had changed and was warm and sunny. It was so warm that the windows of the car were open allowing the birdsong and tantalising smells of nature to flood in. This time the trees were covered in leaves that rustled softly in the late summer breeze. We drove past scented gardens that simply overflowed with a profusion of many flowers in all colours of the rainbow. All of a sudden something flew in through the window and started buzzing furiously round my face, which frightened me. My mother turned round and shooshed out whatever insect it was, all I remember was that it was green! My father said that I was now in the country and would have to start getting used to things like this because we were moving to the house we had visited so many months before.

The old lady had gone and all the rooms were empty and echoed, as we walked on the stained floorboards. My memory as to our belongings being brought by the removal lorry and moved in are hazy and all that I hold of that day is that I was back out in the magic garden again knowing that this was now my new home and garden to explore and love for years to come. Oh, how things had changed since that first visit. The lawn had become overgrown and ripe rosy apples were now hanging on the Cox's apple tree, some of which had fallen into the long grass. I watched with curiosity at the activity of the many yellow and black striped insects buzzing furiously around the fallen apples knowing instinctively that they were to be avoided or else theyd hurt me. I still dislike wasps!

I gazed up the garden to see that it too had also become overgrown into a tangle of long grass, bleached dry into hay by the long days of the summer sun. I walked towards it and found that it was almost as tall as I was. I ventured in, hearing the sound of the rustling, crunching and snapping of the dried stalks underfoot. A spider suddenly appeared in front of me hanging from her web and startled me. I didn't then and still don't today feel comfortable with spiders; frightened I cried out and my father was by my side, reassuring and comforting me with a big smile on his face. Maybe there was nothing to fear from this creature, but that still didn't make me like it, whatever my father said.

From that day on time becomes a blur as to in which order events occurred, but all were filed away in my memory to be held and treasured forever. Each year's seasons followed on from the last in the every circling cycle of life, which I experienced year after year, as I grew up surrounded by so much beauty around me in every way possible. A better childhood environment would have been hard to find.

Both my parents adored the garden and spent much of their time digging and weeding flowerbeds, cutting grass and planting flowers and vegetables. The soil was fine and sandy and my father took advantage of this by digging huge holes around the garden, much to the annoyance of my Mother and using the soft yellow sand, to mix with concrete that he then made into the various paths that led around the garden.

At the top of the garden were two wooden garden sheds where my father kept an enormous amount of stuff ranging from garden tools, decorating bits, tins and pots of paint, thinners, creosote for fencing along with odd pieces of wood and boxes of unknown things that I later discovered belonged to my Father when he was a boy: books, lead soldiers and many other treasurers he kept there, some of which I never saw. These sheds were also home to the biggest spiders I had ever seen and would rarely go inside for fear of being confronted by one.

I remember my father once finding a nest of mice with young still in it. I won't go into graphic detail but suffice to say it did not last long, especially as some of the nesting material had once been one of my father's childhood books. Huge dust covered spiders webs hung in every corner and crevice. It was hardly any wonder that on the occasions that my father needed to make a concerted search for something that he entered the large shed with the collar of his shirt turned up just in case! The biggest shed had the advantage of a large window made up of small panes of glass. Flammable items such as paint and thinners my father would move away to the back of the shed where it was cooler and in the shade, as the heat generated by the sun shining through that window during the summer months caused the interior to become very hot and dusty. Eventually, getting fed up with only having the light from a torch to search for items during the winter months, my father ran metal tubing containing an electric cable up the garden thus enabling him to have a single light bulb hanging from the beam in the centre of the shed. However, one always checked the light switch before touching it - those spiders were everywhere!


Added 14 January 2010

#226972

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