Nana and Poppy's Garden

Driving down a narrow inner city street the other day, I saw the tips of trimmed trees in a walled garden in front of a very old house. It looked like a traditional Japanese garden, so I was keen to peek through the gate to see if it was - it looked like it had been once, but was not kept up, so the ground was a mess of dirt and leaves with a scratchy old path. It looked like the kind of tired old garden you'd play in at your grandparents house, I thought.

Which sparked the memory of my own Nana and Poppy's garden, which was neither Japanese nor unkempt!

There was a front lawn, and a path going round the side of the house. The most interesting part of this was the concrete wall, which of course we had to balance on. A gazebo gate led to the back garden. The repertory society was on one side of the house and the bridge club on the other, with a big lawn, which we played on sometimes.

The house with the car shed to the left

From the other side, showing the path up to the back garden. I'm on the fence to the right

 Balancing on the concrete fence by the front lawn.

Showing the Bridge Club with the green roof on the right in the photo above and at the top below. I could not recall that concrete and sure enough, the satellite photo shows it not there, it must be very recent! 

The back garden had a lawn with the ubiquitous Hills Hoist in the centre, a concrete path leading from it to the house; tomato vines along the left, north-facing wall, and a greenhouse near the house, and a big garden along the back fence. There were 3-4 mature trees with a path winding through them, and shrubs and flowers planted underneath them. The best tree for climbing was in the back left, and looked over the bowling green, which enabled us kids to pretend to be spies, spying on the suspicious activities of a bunch of oldies rolling heavy black balls over a lawn. I'm sure the old codgers shook their fists at us because they knew we were pretending to be spies, and not because they were really annoyed!

This photo clearly shows the Repertory Society with the cream roof, and the bowling club green to its left. Nana and Poppy's garden is in the dead centre; though its run down now as they have been gone for 25 years, you can make out the tree in the corner overlooking the bowling green, and how the area is divided into two parts, the back garden walk and the lawn area. Hills Hoist gone! Looks like the greenhouse has gone too.