Where the Daisies Grew.

I asked the taxi to drop me at the high street, I knew my way from there and a small part of me really wanted to take in all the changes. It was like a whole different street, and I strained to spot anything that felt familiar. I suppose a lot can change in twenty years.

I didn’t stay on the high street long, my feet took me where I wanted to go. It had been a lifetime since I had been back here but the route home was forever etched in my mind.

I had been nine when we had moved from my childhood home, moved to a bigger city and a smaller house. I hadn’t minded the smaller house; it was the small garden that had upset me as a child.

As I walked back along the streets that I knew by heart and not at all, my mind wandered back to my childhood garden and I felt my excitement and pace increase.

The back garden had seemed giant to my childish gaze and I suppose it was big to some extent. It was one of those gardens that was made for children. It was long as opposed to wide and the grass ran up the right hand side bordered by a flower bed and a fence. To the left was a small stone path that led to the end of the garden and then to the left of the path was the garage and shed.

The garage itself was a source of infinite pleasure – filled as it was with old bikes, skipping ropes, a broken barbecue, a space hopper and balls of all imaginable sizes.

The garden was a child’s paradise, occupied by a swing set, seesaw, slide, pogo stick, hose and a washing line that, though it was strictly forbidden, we would swing around on for what seemed like hours.

At the bottom of the garden was a line of fir trees covering the fence that separated our house and the one behind. We, my sister and I, were friends with the girls in that house when we were younger. At the edge of the garden was a break in the trees and fence. A secret passageway through which we could squeeze to gain access to their garden and home.

It was through this secret passage that the school rabbit had jumped one weekend when my sister was in charge of him. I remember we had the whole neighbourhood looking for the rabbit only to find him in the garden behind ours munching on their lettuce. Their father, a chef, was not happy. Every Saturday night we would squeeze through that gap with a bag of popcorn and bottle of lemonade to watch whatever movie was being shown on TV.

As magical as this garden was it was the garden at the front of our house that I was truly excited to see again. It was much smaller than the one out back; it contained no toys and no secret passages to other houses but to me it was a wholly thrilling place.

When we had lived here my father had come every Saturday to take me and my sister out for the day. Every Saturday morning at 10:30 he would arrive and without fail every Saturday my sister and I would be in the garden at 10 o’clock waiting.

The garden itself was no more than a small patch of grass to the right of the drive. A few small flowers grew under the wall which faced the road and next to the house two rhododendron bushes grew wild. Down the middle of the drive way was a small trail of dirt through which my mother allowed Daisy’s to grow. She always said that was because my name was Daisy and they reminded her of me. That made me smile.

The main pleasure I felt in this garden however was in the red bricked wall that ran around it. It was small and even and started at the side of our house. I would climb up onto the wall and walk right the way around. Arms out to the sides wobbling as though it was only with great difficulty that I kept my balance. In my mind I was on a tightrope over the Niagara Falls, any slight loss of balance and I would plummet down.

The wall stopped at the entrance of the drive and then continued on the other side. Each side of the driveway was flanked by, what seemed to me then to be, a giant brick tower. In reality it was probably only four feet tall and once I reached it I could easily scramble atop and look out over my kingdom.

My sister and I would race each other, from the fir trees at the very back of the house to the towers at the very front, each ending the race with a desperate struggle to reach the top first. Whoever did win, usually my sister as she was a few years older, would stand triumphantly atop the tower chanting,

‘I’m the king of the castle and you’re the dirty rascal!’

Every Saturday morning we would have this race and then settle down on our towers to watch for our dad. My father drove a company car and it seemed it was always changing. Sometime we would know the colour of car to look for, red, blue, green, and whenever we saw a car in that colour we would jump up and race to see if it was him. Other times we wouldn’t know what colour to expect and would run at the sound of any car at all.

We always agreed to wait on the towers until he came but inevitably the wait became to long and tedious for us and we would begin to play a game. Our favorite was ‘Shop’, but not any ordinary ‘Shop’ like we would play in doors or in the back garden. This garden on a Saturday morning became a very special type of shop.

The shopkeeper (we took it in turns to be the shopkeeper and the customer) would stand in the garden just behind the wall, careful not to squash the flowers. The customer would go to the street and on the other side of the wall place an order. A huge long list which always ended the same way,

‘I want, seven pads of paper
Six sharpened pencils
Five mars bars
Four teddy bears
Three new bikes (with gears)
Two Puppies (brown and white – no barking)
And a partridge in a pear tree!’

With a nod the shopkeeper would turn their back and walk towards a new section of wall, picking a brick they would mime opening it like a draw and out from this draw they would pull, paper and pencils. There would be a separate draw for puppies of course and for the bikes. You see this shop was no ordinary shop; this shop stocked anything in the world.

Finally once the shopkeeper had gathered all the items on the list they would hand it to the customer and demand payment of a few pounds, the shop of course being the cheapest of all the shops. The customer would hand over payment of a few leaves and the shopkeeper hand back some grass as change.

Sometimes the customer asked for very specific things. Like if the customer was a writer they could ask for a typewriter that was so clever it could write down your thoughts. Or sometimes the customer was an astronaut that needed a new space rocket that could shrink down and fit in your pocket.

In reality we were two little girls waiting for our father to take us to the cinema. But in that garden on a Saturday morning we could be anyone, and we could have anything. Nothing mattered, not money, not age, not school nor families, it was magical.

I turned the corner of my old street and my heart began to pound. Wave after wave of nostalgia ran over me as I passed my old neighbor’s houses. As I got closer and closer to the magical garden of my childhood I worried that I was making a mistake. What if it had changed? What if it was beyond recognition and the memories of the freedom and happiness it had brought me were washed away by the time that had passed?

Before I had the time to change my mind and turn away I found myself standing face to face with my old house. I caught my breath. The house itself was different, looked newer somehow; the old wooden door had been replaced by a white, plastic looking new one. The curtains in the window were different and the sticker of a teddy bear had been removed from the window pane.

The garden, my garden, was virtually unrecognizable. The bushes, the flowers, even the grass and my Daisies were all gone, paved over, with two cars parked neatly on top. I stood for a moment taking it all in, all of the changes, trying to find any small thing that was familiar. And then I left, walking away smiling to myself. I knew then that no matter what happened to the garden or how much it had changed it would always be the same, to me.