Today I went back to the house where I was born and lived until I got married. The house is being sold, so I borrowed they keys and went back, climbed the stairs, that I climbed up to bedfordshire when the Archers Theme tune played.
Looked in the front room, where my Mum had made so many of my clothes on her manual singer sewing machine.
Wandered through the bedrooms, remembering the furniture that had been there.
At the back of the airing cupbord, some pealing vintage wall paper from the early 60's, which I vaguely remember being in the dining room when I was small.
I walked the length of the landing, where my elder brother would celebrate the return from holiday by creating massive traffic jams moving each car forward inch by inch. When he ran out of cars he would appropriate the heads from my elder sisters dolls...
At the top of the garden the apple tree still stands.
When my grandfather finally agreed to retire from the ships chandlers in Milford Haven to a new home in Torquay he sent his favourite apple tree to be planted in my parents new garden. It arrived with a small amount of root, and no one thought it would survive, but it did. here is a flower to prove it.
I hope the new owners appreciate the small sweet fruit it produces.
The end of an era, bitter sweet, but I am glad I got the chance to go and say goodbye, to step through the front door once more.
