Nanny’s rose

Every year for the past 30:years or so this rose has been fighting its way up the pergola and through the dense honeysuckle to find the sun and light.  We called it after our Nanny and planted it when she died in remembrance of her.

When she was young her hair was red and her temper was fiery.  The family tiptoed around her not wanting to get on the wrong side and unleash  a volley of sharp words.  When I came into the family in my late teens the family held their breath to see how I was received.  I met this small bespectacled lady with grey hair and blue eyes and we immediately formed a close bond and then when I married her beloved grandson I was taken firmly under her wing.  Later on as she moved into her eighties she stayed with us and kept her two great grandchildren occupied by playing all sorts of games.

The rose is like her.  Always striving and never giving up.  It flowers from late spring to late autumn and sometimes into the winter.  We can’t prune it or even take the dead blooms away as it’s too high but we love it just as we loved Nanny.