tangled up in green - in the garden

We spent a few nights at my parents this week - the rain kept us mainly inside - I haven't liked to take Littlest outside too much, even bundled up, when she has been so very sick recently, although I will soon take the (very layered) leap.

My parents' garden is very large, long and narrow and very green. Seeing the kids playing in it I remember when my family first arrived from the inner-suburbs and it was a long strip of waist high, sun-browned grass and blackberries, with one sprawling fig-tree, one giant pine tree and a scattering of cherry plum trees.

The grass has been replaced by a mass of tangled, verdant plants. The pine tree is gone, but the fig tree remains, massive and sprawling, and the place of many pirate battles (its branches bounced in a very satisfactory way when we jumped on them) is still there. I suspect its two resident bats - Chaos and Darkness, still live close by.

Every year my dad has given my mum fruit trees for birthdays and Christmas, and it is impossible to wander down without grazing - at the moment lemons and mandarines, but there are apple trees, olive trees, blueberries, grape vines, peaches and strawberries as well as the cherry-plums.

As a kid I spent hours reading and writing up in the cherry-plum trees, where mum had put pallets as tree houses and hammered up ladders.

There was a rope hanging from one of the pine trees branches and we used to gather up the rope, climb on top of the rackety tin chicken-coop and jump off, swinging hysterical with laughter while our dog (a crotchety border collie) snapped at our heels, trying to round us up.

There's a tunnel going up the side of the slope of the gully, and as kids we were just able to wiggle through it - it was only a few feet long, but it twisted up through the clay slope and every time we went through it we'd be afraid we'd never be able to get out. Looking at it now - both ends grown over, and remembering back to moments stuck in clay, convinced I couldn't inch my way any further, or retreat back the way I'd come, completely enclosed, I think we were crazy to even attempt it. And yet we did, again and again.

When we first arrived in the house we didn't even know the gully existed - it was so full of blackberries. It took us five years to get rid of all the berries - first slashing and then digging up the roots.  I was exceptionally dedicated to this, attacking the thorns that towered over us with vigour as I was promised ducklings as soon as the blackberries were cleared. I encouraged, bossed and bribed my younger brothers as we cut and slashed the blackberries away, bitter at their violent ways, always trying to twine around us, and coming back just when we thought we had them all.

Being back in the garden, watching my own kids play in it, brings nostalgia creeping. I wonder how they'll remember the gardens of their childhood. They're approaching the age my brothers and I were when we first moved in, and the thought both perplexes and pleases me.

Which gardens will be the one that will shape their ideas of 'outside', of play, of green and living things?

into the forest (and the trickery of birds)

Sprocket - his teddies in his backpack, carrying the picnic bag on his head, testing the sharpness of some grass.


We packed a picnic and the favoured teddies, pulled on gumboots and headed off for a teddy bears picnic in the woods.

Although it was mid-morning by the time we reached the forest - in the holidays our going-out-preperations are leisurely - there was still a slight haze in the air.

The air was thick and rich, moist and fragrant of growing stuffs. The sound of the stream followed by our side as we walked along to the perfect picnic table for our teddies and us. Littlest was held on my chest in her sling, her warmth and gentle breathing reassuring, her sleeping face perfect, her skin pearly.

Her first trip to the forest, she slept all through it, lulled by the motion as I walked.

The stream that ran beside us made its watery rushing noise and all was still and peaceful but for the whining of the kids. "This is boring. I'm hungry. Are we there yet? I'm so tired… yadda yadda repeat. And then repeat again. On some days they love the walk, studying the stream for wildlife, jumping in puddles, playing with sticks, jumping from behind trees to scare us.

It wasn't one of those days.

We walked until we reach the picnic table, looking out for bunyips, pointing out brilliantly green mosses, animal trails and scats, falls of light on furling ferns, discussing the possibilities of platypuses and echidnas.

At the picnic table, eating our sandwiches, showing the gaudy toy pony the sights, the light fell gently and the noise of the water was a constant as the stream flowed steadily beside us and the children, eating, were at peace.

On the way back, the children ran on ahead of my sister-in-law and I, their tiredness gone with the promise of a playground they love with an extra-special slide at the nearby town. There had not been enough mud to tempt them into play…

And then there was the noise of fierce dogs  barking, of children crying. We broke into a trot, calling for the children, going as fast as we could with Littlest in a sling.

When we reached the children they were laughing. I asked them about the dogs, the crying, and they said what dogs? what crying? We didn't see anything.

And it occurred to me we have been tricked by a lyrebird - those perfect mimics. It amused me that I was taken in by a bird. I imagined it hiding in the undergrowth, working out what would most worry us, cause the biggest reaction. I imagined it laughing at us (silently) from its secret place.

Even though we didn't see it, and there's possibly another explanation for the noise, the path is called 'Lyrebird Walk' and it adds to the magic that it's possible we heard one, were thoroughly tricked by one.

Outside, in the green, there is always the possibility of magic - an echidna, a rainbow, a teasing bird...

Going down memory lane, this is the same walk - two years ago (and what happened to Poppet's curls!). Sometimes you really do just need the green.

moments - the walk before

Last week my girls and I went on our usual walk - to see the unicorns (although only Poppet can see their horns), to look at the blossom I had seen from the car and to see if the fairy mushrooms that had been there last winter had returned.

My Poppet jumped and leapt and ran and cavorted. I admired the high blue sky, the deep green of the grass, the crisp air and trees that managed two seasons in a day - with autumn leaves and blossom on the same branches, even though we are in the heart of winter.

My Poppet had the nasty cough she has had for the past few weeks - my Littlest had the sniffles. Over the next few days my Littlest's sniffles developed into something far worse - bronchiolitis and we ended up spending four nerve-wracking days in hospital. I have never been so scared. My sweetest Littlest was wheezing and coughing and struggling so badly. I have never been more grateful we live in a place and time with amazing medical skills.

We are home now, my Littlest is smiling again. But these are moments from our walk 'before.'

Joining with Em for moments from our week.