A boyfriend and I lived on the same street, about a quarter of a mile apart. When he walked me home from his house late at night (and sometimes early in the morning) his cat would accompany us to escort him home.
I didn't have anyone to bond with, but I loved The Spice Girls. My excellent taste in women is proven yet again by my Mel C crush - she's never been anything but amazing. I read her memoir a few months ago, and it merely showed me how right I've always been 😁
Something that happened when I was a kid... Something that I actually want to remember... These things are not as many as I'd like, there's a reason I never go back there.
But I was always an explorer. I liked to just go out and wander. And every day I did a paper round, I'd walk oast this battered, rusted, set of old gates, the mud and dirt so ingrained and tick at the bottom that they couldn't open. There was a waist-high wall on one side, with a couple of feet of grace before the ground dropped off to the small river which ran under the road/bridge.
So one day I went out and hopped the wall. Then I walked up what must have been gorgeous driveway. The river burbling away to my left. Trees on either side. Mulched leaves and mud over the ground.
There was one spot in particular which, for some reason, resonates still with my brain. Just a thick canopy, light fomtering down through the leaves, one gnarled tree sat right at the edge, so you could sit at the roots and see the river. I loved that spot.
(I found out later that another obscure gate down on of the roads I did my paper round on would lead me around the vack of one kf the farms, and to the aanr place in the middle, just a thinner path and much less pretty.)
There was a very much neglected attempt at a small wire fence, which I stepped over with ease and carried on.
Eventually the treeline ended and opened into a huge field, with a steep hill up to the main road. But at the bottom, right in front of me, there was a crumbled ruin of stone. Some of it still stood - giant windows and doors. Some of it was mere stumps. Stone was scattered everywhere. And in one spot, though it'd have needed digging out to actually enter, was the entrance to a cellar.
I used to go to that tree when I wanted to sit and be alone where nobody else would come - because nobody ever did.
And I'd wander to that ruin and imagine what it had been like. The house had been owned by the family who owned all the land nearby - including the streets I grew up with. They were all named after which bits of farmland they'd been.
I trot out the memory of the place sometimes, when I need that peace and quiet in my head. I long ago excised some other memories around it, which involve someone else I have no wish to remember, and I just go to my tree.
A boyfriend and I lived on the same street, about a quarter of a mile apart. When he walked me home from his house late at night (and sometimes early in the morning) his cat would accompany us to escort him home.
*a lifelong bond over the Spice Girls"
I didn't have anyone to bond with, but I loved The Spice Girls. My excellent taste in women is proven yet again by my Mel C crush - she's never been anything but amazing. I read her memoir a few months ago, and it merely showed me how right I've always been 😁
Something that happened when I was a kid... Something that I actually want to remember... These things are not as many as I'd like, there's a reason I never go back there.
But I was always an explorer. I liked to just go out and wander. And every day I did a paper round, I'd walk oast this battered, rusted, set of old gates, the mud and dirt so ingrained and tick at the bottom that they couldn't open. There was a waist-high wall on one side, with a couple of feet of grace before the ground dropped off to the small river which ran under the road/bridge.
So one day I went out and hopped the wall. Then I walked up what must have been gorgeous driveway. The river burbling away to my left. Trees on either side. Mulched leaves and mud over the ground.
There was one spot in particular which, for some reason, resonates still with my brain. Just a thick canopy, light fomtering down through the leaves, one gnarled tree sat right at the edge, so you could sit at the roots and see the river. I loved that spot.
(I found out later that another obscure gate down on of the roads I did my paper round on would lead me around the vack of one kf the farms, and to the aanr place in the middle, just a thinner path and much less pretty.)
There was a very much neglected attempt at a small wire fence, which I stepped over with ease and carried on.
Eventually the treeline ended and opened into a huge field, with a steep hill up to the main road. But at the bottom, right in front of me, there was a crumbled ruin of stone. Some of it still stood - giant windows and doors. Some of it was mere stumps. Stone was scattered everywhere. And in one spot, though it'd have needed digging out to actually enter, was the entrance to a cellar.
I used to go to that tree when I wanted to sit and be alone where nobody else would come - because nobody ever did.
And I'd wander to that ruin and imagine what it had been like. The house had been owned by the family who owned all the land nearby - including the streets I grew up with. They were all named after which bits of farmland they'd been.
I trot out the memory of the place sometimes, when I need that peace and quiet in my head. I long ago excised some other memories around it, which involve someone else I have no wish to remember, and I just go to my tree.