Everything has a story

...even if we don't know it.

I don't know the story behind these slate troughs in our wall. Clearly they were used to feed the pigs that once grunted and snouted in the farm yard because each trough has a chute, also made from slate, via which slops would have been poured. But what sort of slops - whey from butter making? Spent grain from brewing? No one seems to know, nor when the troughs date from nor how they were constructed (integral with the wall or inserted after?) How old are they and how rare? I haven't seen any similar.

I do know the stories behind the two trees visible in the picture.

The bay tree that overhangs the wall is the daughter of the daughter of an enormous bay tree that grew in the derelict garden that lay behind our previous home in Oxford. A big house had burnt down many years before and the garden had been left to run wild over the years since. There were all sorts of curious things to be found,  including one of the  original Sheldonian heads. I often poked around up there and I took a sucker from the bay to plant in our garden where it flourished - even surviving one severe winter when all the foliage froze brown and died. In 1994 I took a sucker from that bay tree to plant here, initially in a large tub which it outgrew and then was moved into the ground behind the wall.

[The original bay tree still survives and the derelict garden became the site of a small housing estate that goes by the name of  Bay Tree Close.]

The other tree, on the left, is a myrtle - currently in bloom, its small creamy flowers subtly perfuming the air when the sun shines. That too started life as a tiny sucker which was given to me by a former occupant of this house. Lady X was a war widow with a young family when she bought the farm in the late fifties and she hired some local men to work the land and look after the stock. One was a former German PoW who had settled nearby and was working at a neighbouring farm. Well, long story short, they fell for each other, the lady and the... not exactly a tramp but a tough and  resourceful survivor of warfare, injury and internment. 

 The scandal must have kept tongues wagging for years but in the fullness of time the two of them ended their days together in peace and comfort and both died at a ripe old age. Lady X gave me a sucker when I admired her myrtle tree  on a visit to them where they lived in later life.

 To be honest I wish I hadn't planted either so close to the house, not realising they would grow so big. But we never know what the future holds do we?