A Treasure

Her foot has been re-attached . She is back in her place. It's never really been safe. When the clothes line had to be shifted she was even less secure. She was always within reach of little hands. Somehow, they seem to sense how fragile she is and they just look.

There is no other place for her. I need to see her. Moving my chair might be an option. But I can see every corner of my garden from my chair. As well as the shade, the chair is against the wall and half under the eaves. If it rains, I can stay out for twenty minutes without getting wet. Sometimes there can be a shower and all I feel is the faintest, lightest, gossamer touch on my bare arm.

I've thought of a canvas awning over the deck. But I wouldn't be able to look up into the leaves and watch the movement. or catch a glimpse of the red-headed wood-pecker running up and down and around the trunk,stopping occasionally to peck frenetically.

She is so precious . I recognized her the minute I saw her at the Bradford Greenhouse.

I had few childhood possessions. We didn't have books..

The kids next door did. They had Sunday clothes as well. Their Dad, Wee Donald McNab,had a trade and worked steady at the shipyard. They were Protestants. Apprenticeship papers didn't say you couldn't be an apprentice if you were Catholic. They just said you had to be Protestant.

I didn't know that then.

So they got books at Christmas . Margaret had a lovely plaid pleated skirt and white blouse with a hosiery cardigan , shiny shoes and nice knee high socks for Sunday.

We didn't have books. Neighbors on the other side gave us the daily paper when they had finished with it. We spread it out on the floor and read the comic strips and the adventures of Rupert the Bear.Sometimes my brother had a comic. Hotspur or The Dandy was a new one

The only possessions I remember were little cards from Players cigarette packets. Vaguely remembered also are tiny, shiny little silk flags from the packets. There were marbles and conkers(chestnuts) If I ever got my hands on one of them, I didn't get to keep it. Somebody else always wanted it. I was youngest in the house until I was six.

I would be five when I got my first school reading book. The Fairie Queen Mabs was illustrated. I don't remember if there was a story or a poem. It's the memory of the picture I treasured.

Then I found her. She's in my garden. She is exactly how I remember her.Now I must
create a place, where I can see her all the time and she can be absolutely safe.

My garden is sixty-three feet wide and fifty feet deep. I have neighbors on every side. That's alright. When I was child living where I was born, at 22 Friar's Croft, Irvine, Ayrshire and had no possessions, the McNab's door wasn't more than two and a half feet away from ours. That was alright too

I am not like Guy Poppe .

I don't need to know the hundred acres of rolling land I see from my window, but don't own, will never be shared with anyone else. I don't need to convince myself, the wealthy woman who planned how her estate would be shared, really meant the land was for me.

I don't share his passion to control everything in his view.

Frankly, I don't have a lot of sympathy to share for Guy Poppe and what he represents.