What a lovely bright sunny morning just the day to do a spot of gardening. The little garden I have is not very big and all I have to do is to cut the grass and hedge and there is only a few more bits and pieces to do with the help of my little westie and black Scottie and then it is finished in one way it is good as it gives me more time to write another story. But the bad thing is that it hasn't got any character to it when my grand children come to visit me they get very bored and as Jamie and Jay two of my grandson's say why can't we play ball in the garden nanny Jan? like we do at home And I had to tell them that as the garden is small they would lose the ball if it were to go over the fence. But if we were still living in Greet rd the garden was so big that Jamie and Jay and the rest of the grandchildren would have had a great time just like I had when I was their age.
Our garden in Greet Rd had a good selection of plant's that was brought home by my granddad. Around one side of the fence there was big tall Hollyhocks with lovely colour's of red and pink, flocks of pure white and a shade of purple the other side of the fence was big yellow sunflower's with faces that looked as if they were smiling at you and they grow very tall and attracted the bee's The rose trees that climbed the wall was vicious with its thorns but looked pretty with their colour's of crimson red that smelt so heavenly that you would not think of how one of their thorns could hurt you. The honeysuckle that climbed up the fence, over the roof of the shed that also had a strong fragrance, like all of the flowers which had such wonderful smells. When you walked out into the garden first thing in the morning all through the summer months and the birds would be singing in our apple and oak trees. Also we had lots of families of sparrows which today I can honest tell you I haven't seen any sparrow's in my garden or any where in Brentford but I am happy to say that I have seen them in Somerset in my daughters garden.
At the bottom of our garden was an old big Oak tree that my grandmother had planted from an acorn when she had move in to Greet Rd in 1911. My grandmother must have given it a lot of tender care because it grows in to a tall big tree. I used to only get to climb the first few branches when my mother would catch me climbing and shout out of the window to tell me to get down. My biggest wish was to have my very own tree house built in that tree so that I could hide away from every body and be in my little world of my own to be able to read my books in peace and to make it my own secret den. I can't tell you how many times I asked my dear old dad to build that tree house with all that wood he used to bring home from work and he was so good at making things with wood so I knew he could make a really good tree house for me I knew that he would have made it if it hadn't have been for my mother putting her foot down and firmly saying no because she did not like me climbing the tree. She thought I would fall down and hurt myself. Just under the oak tree was a old aired shelter that my father had built for the war After the war we keep the shelter in the garden for several years and that is where I made do without my dream tree house I adopted the old shelter and I used to like to escape into the shelter to play and I called it my secret den and it was my little make believe world. I was so upset to see my dad pull it down to make way for a lawn. In the centre of the garden was an apple tree that had nice blooms and then little green apples would appear they were so sour to enjoy the taste. And it made a nice shade from the sun so that we could sit around the table and chairs under the apple tree to eat our lunch and enjoy the nice weather that we used to have.
One day my father brought home such a lot of wood and piled it up in our lovely garden that I could not go in to my secret den and What a surprise I thought at last my dream was coming true and my mum had changed her mind and dad was going to build my long awaited tree house but to my disappointment he started to build a boat it took him sometime to finish the boat it was such a big boat and he called the boat Jan after me he painted my name on the boat in sign writing and it looked really good. When it was finished he could not take it through the house so he and a few strong men took the boat through the ally in to the street and loaded it on to a big lorry the local butcher had brought it from my father.
My grandfather who lived with us until he died in the early fifties used to work as a market gardener in the fields that are now built on. The area surrounding Clayponds lane estate. My late mother told me all about the fields that were beautiful and the trees that you could hear the birds singing happily when you walked though the fields. On a hot summers day. When my mother was small she used to go with my Gran to give my grandfather a jug of cold barley water to drink, as it was so hot working in the fields.
My granddad used to bring home a great load of vegetables fruit and flowers for the family. So thanks to my granddad this is why we had such a lovely garden of flowers even after all those year's since my granddad had died the flowers still used to came up every year It was such a shame having to move out of Greet Rd and leave that pretty garden that the bull dozers flattened very quickly in minutes.
Taking a walk across the Great West Rd you will see the Clayponds estate. Looking at the house's that now stand on the Claypond's estate it takes a lot of believing that once upon a time how beautiful the scenery must have been with all those fields and open spaces.
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