I have moved house so many times, leaving behind a garden into which I have poured my heart, my soul, my muscles. When I arrived in Pangbourne I found neither energy, enthusiasm or motivation for beginning again, horticulturally speaking.
The fact that I was still recovering from two cancer operations might have had something to do with it, I suppose. And the garden at Maple Cottage was basically okay, certainly good enough to hang out the washing and provide privacy for whatever I might get up to.[Chance would be a fine thing!].
Then it was decided that Lucia and Izzie would look after Granny twice a week. [Or was it the other way round?]
They quickly demonstrated that there was plenty of fun potential I had not thought of in my new garden - dens in the shrubbery, a temptingly forked tree trunk to climb, hide and seek in the many overgrown nooks and crannies.
They seemed very content but I felt I owed it to them to make a contribution so without too much thinking about whether I was up to it, I set about constructing a sandpit under the apple tree. A generous neighbour of then down-the-back-alley sort appeared one day with his wife and his-and-her wheelbarrows of surplus gravel with which the girls and I laid out a sort of beach round the sandpit. Joan, a nearer neighbour, contributed a galvanised bucket which worked its way through numerous transporting jobs in the process. A blissful Summer ensued with as many outdoor activities as any Nursery School could offer.
Came the Autumn and Sue and Lewis next door passed potatoes, beans and tomatoes over the fence from their vegetable plot and I demonstrated to my charges the delights of home-grown food. For instance, a fresh-picked tomato popped in the pan with the sausages makes a tasty and healthy alternative to ketchup. Our own apples appeared and making jelly for pud gave way to baking fruit. The germ of desire to do my own thing in the garden, to have my own potager even, was born and the impetus from sharing it with two under fives was enormous.
Not least the joy of seeing again through their wide-eyed wonder the miracle of a tiny, well-tended seedling growing into a giant plant.
Sunflowers are always popular and ours have gone from strength to strength as have the hollyhocks. And the marrows were just as impressive, horizontally rather than vertically - ours crept right across the path and the lawn. Best of all, I was able to revisit with Lucia and Izzie the delightful moment in my own childhood when my Dad pointed out that some of the marrows had names written on them. A marrow named Lucia never made it to the cooking pot, and neither did the one with Izzie on it - they took them home to show their parents just what the fairies get up to in Granny's garden.
Both my girls are interested in stones. Their sharp eyes are forever discovering pebbles shaped like hearts, teeth, people - and proudly displayed on my desk - one like a minute hedgehog. But Lucia has found a practical use for the blue and orange stones which surface now and then from under the hard-core of my drive - she arranges them on the topsoil of my potted shrubs to smother weeds.
They are both into wildlife, too - Lucia would rather a creepy crawly snail for a pet than a dog any day. She often begs a matchbox to transport her latest find back home to her unsuspecting parents.
And both are incipient engineers. Izzie, 4, designed and helped build a hanging bird table using a square of wood from the garage, two screw eyes and lengths of string meant to suspend a hanging basket - at just the right height for her to put out her own surplus-to-requirements cereal after breakfast. Lucia , 7, made an interesting bird toy from sticks, feathers, pine cones and flower heads.
Three years on and above mentioned Joan appeared with a handful of bulrush thinnings. Things can come together even in my Senior Citizen mind and so the latest project, designed to encourage frogs - and consequently the fun of tadpole watching - is a tiny water feature to replace the sandpit, now rarely used. Joan's bucket has found its final resting place, sunk in the corner complete with rushes - and no doubt Lucia will create a tasteful edging with pebbles and other bric a brac.
This year we are going to branch out - pun intended - into soft fruit. Some raspberry canes and a gooseberry bush are already in situ and though they look at the moment as uninteresting as the pea sticks supporting them I am sure their potential is enormous. If only for "discussions" around the picnic rugs we spread out on Summer afternoons. Just think. A gooseberry bush!
In wet weather we sit in the attic and browse seed catalogues. On shopping trips in the village we dart into the local Aladdin's cave of a hardware shop to purchase bulbs and propagators, gardening gloves and green fertilisers.
What a lot has come out of this gardening business!
And the bonus is that, without even noticing the therapy involved, I feel so much better! Thanks to children, neighbours - and gardening.
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