Exploring

This is what summer should be: two girls explore the half-neglected but still lovely garden of a friend. There are hidden barn-type buildings, a one-time glasshouse that was used for propagation but has been taken over by the last trees and shrubs to be grown there, a cottage slowly subsiding into itself. There are unexpected lawns, precipitous rock gardens, and the grass has been mowed and is green and inviting. A mysterious burn gurgles its way under the house and through the garden, to emerge just before its leaves on its way to the sea.

My granddaughters were free to roam , like free-range chickens; they chatted in French to their (French) hostess, they ate cake and chocolate biscuits. Rounding them up to go home was like herding hens, appropriately enough.

And all the time the sun shone and the air was warm. Truly a day from which memories linger...