My new gate…

And the power of memories. In this case, it’s the memories of countless children's books where a girl opened a gate and went into another world. The Secret Garden is probably hopelessly out of date and against all sorts of things, but that doesn’t stop me remembering it with love. I’m an Army brat, so some of the places where we lived when I was a child didn’t have TV. They did have libraries, and I like books better than TV and films because your imagination paints in the details better than any special effects ever could.

Besides, you meet such interesting people in them and see different worlds and different viewpoints. Most of all, you can escape from a world that all too often isn’t kind. I think we all need that more than ever at the moment, which may explain why homes are becoming more and more important to those of us who are lucky to have one.

Autumn and winter play their part too, especially if, like today, it’s raining with the sort of heavy grey rain that means there’s no light. If ever there was a day to make a mug of hot chocolate and then escape into a good book, then this one would be it. Soon, I shall be off to Windy Bay in January to see the new pub, but right now I’m thinking about my lovely tall solid gate that no one walking past can see over the top of. That means that my garden is enclosed by walls and fences, and there’s a sense of stepping through the gate and into a place where nature is welcome, especially the hedgehogs who snuffle under the fruit trees and eat the windfall apples. It’s been a good year for those, but now the leaves are falling, so I’m sweeping them up. Then, I’m doing it again. Then, just for a change, I’m gathering them up, bagging them up and putting them behind the shed ready for two years' time when they’ll be leaf mould. I’ll spread the mould that I made two years ago over the flower beds and under the trees and on top of the plants in their pots to feed and keep them warm and feel the sense of renewal as the wheel of the year turns.

That’s why there’s going to be a Green Man on my gate, so it can guard the copse of trees, and I will be able to see it from the kitchen window and remind myself of the strangeness of a being who’s often found on old churches and apparently represents the capacity for great good or great evil. Or maybe he’s the spirit of nature. Or long ago, Anglo-Saxon workmen rebelling against Norman overlords who were building posh churches to tell God that they were good people, really. Or paganism. Or something else entirely. To me, it’s a reminder that the best thing to do with the seasons is enjoy them for what they are and cherish plants and animals and most of all people.

It’s only a small garden, with two apple trees, one cherry tree and a sycamore tree. The cherry and apples should have been six feet tall and were wedding presents. They’re now heading for twenty feet tall, and there used to be a swing on the cherry tree for the children. We’ve lived here for almost forty years, so there are so many memories, and it’s changed so much, but it’s always been important to me. I can see the euonyus bushes I bought from the sad plant corner at the DIY shop when I was learning to drive because their car park was ideal for practising parking in (And I had to park there during my test, so it was worth practising there). There are the azaleas I add to each year because they were my mum’s favourites, so I add a new one each Mother’s Day and remember her whenever I walk past them. There are gooseberry bushes and brambles and raspberries and Alpine strawberries, and my project to have shrubs and bulbs in flower every day of the year but not buy in annuals is coming along nicely.

Yes, it’s grey and wet, and I can’t go for a walk, but I can see my garden through the window and remember flowers that have been and think about how to make it better still next year. Then I can tuck a quilt over my legs and retreat into my imagination, where it’s even greyer and colder, but love is growing. There will be hot chocolate, real and fictional. There will be friendship, so thanks yet again to all the people who tell me what they like and who they want to hear about. You make this life possible, and I am so, so grateful.

To show my thanks, this week's special offers (99p in the UK and 99c in the US) are the first six books in the Windy Bay series, which are: A fresh start, Starting Over, Second Chances, Endings and beginnings, Building a future and A Healing Time. Windy Bay is a little village a mile or so inland from Dorset’s lovely Jurassic Coast, on the other side of the Harbour from me. Sadly, it’s fictional, but people care about each other there just as they do in my part of Poole. Is that old-fashioned? Possibly, but what’s so bad about that? Wouldn’t it be a better world if we cared about each other more? And a more fun world if we all talked and made things happen rather than saying ‘someone ought to do something’? Couldn’t we make it happen? Or, looked at another way, why shouldn’t we make it happen?


So have fun till we meet again on Sunday, and here’s a picture of my garden. I’m sorry, it hasn’t got the new gate in it, but the cats are adamant that it’s too wet to go out there, and we all know better than to argue with a cat, don’t we?