In the secret garden

On a grey day we revisited an ancient walled garden that dates back two or even three centuries (no one seems to know for sure). It fell into abandon but over the past couple of decades has been tended by a local family and coaxed back into some sort of order, but nevertheless it retains an air of decrepitude, the hand of nature evidently still very much in control despite the human effort.

In the springtime of the year daffodils and celandines vie for pride of place, the sound of birdsong almost deafens and the old walls and greenhouses sink back into the arms of the sprouting vegetation. A strange old-young woman was wandering dreamily around collecting posies of flowers to sell for £1 at the entrance. Her clothes and figure were youthful but her face was lined and aged as if she too had been caught in a time warp, like an elderly sprite. She spoke to us if she had been there forever - perhaps she had.

I took some pretty pictures of the flowers and budding bushes but in the end returned to this one, of a quirkily camouflaged, dilapidated (like everything else) caravan providing, perhaps, a refuge from the rain. I especially like the sombrero hanging optimistically inside the door and the lace curtains (could it have been a love-nest?)

As a child, The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett was a very special book for me, conveying the potency of the natural world as a healing force. In it, two children, both hurt in different ways, are brought back to life by the simple magic of reviving an abandoned garden.