For those who don’t know me, I was born and raised in Devon, England. My Parents, siblings and I moved to Ontario Canada when I was 11 years old. The majority of my family, my best memories and a large part of my heart still belong in a small town in England.
Growing up my favorite place to go was my gran and Grandad’s house. They lived in a small, secluded village, typical of the kind you think of when someone mentions England. The adults all knew each other like they were blood relatives, all the kids all grew up practically cousins. There was a large number of buildings with the cobble stone style bricks, thatched roofs, and big bountiful gardens. It was surrounded by rolling hills and farmlands in every direction, But the very best part of getting dropped off there was the back garden!
To us as kids it was like falling down the rabbit hole and waking up in Narnia. The house was fairly small so kids were generally not allowed inside but we didn’t care, my cousin and I would drop our things and be gone. The garden went on for miles (or it felt like it to us) and was connected to a variety of country lanes perfect for our daily explorations and adventures.
My grandma had many gardens with rows and rows of flowers in every colour and variety, we would spend lots of time together where she would teach me how to plant and transplant flowers, propagate clippings and just spend time together in nature. She taught me to appreciate all animals no matter how big or small and to appreciate and be respectful of your natural surroundings.
My grandad had a huge field where he grew all of the vegetables and flowers that he provided for the whole community, he would deliver them to the village shop every week.
We would always offer to help him pick them and would spend ages picking our favorites of his famous sweet pea flowers. Our ‘help’ always consisted of a handful of random mixed quality and mis-matched lengths but we always left feeling like he couldn’t have done it without us!
Grandad would always take us up to his indoor grow area where he would give us the important job of taste tester for the seasons large ripe strawberries which he loved to proudly showcase and we willingly took on the role.
We may be all grown and scattered around the world but the taste tester position still gets filled by the next generation anytime they are back home ❤️