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<\/p>\nThat tuck-shop and residence opposite the school gate has not changed its shape in sixty years.\u00a0 The weatherboards and the paint of what is left of it are still as they were when the Thomson widow ran it.\u00a0 Of course it had to all come back in a gush of memory.\u00a0 Nowhere else in recent years have I seen the small sunflower stretching in glory to the face of being.\u00a0 Only here in the weedy ground have I seen the remnants of old time proliferation of sunfire blaze. Everywhere, sunflowers bright like the burst of color of coreopsis in bloom along the north shore line.<\/p>\n
Long ago, before Van Gogh made the big ones commonplace, we as small children would stare up to the swaying sol six feet above and with a face as big as a soup plate \u2013 bending over the fences to radiate a joy to small children in the shadows of the lanes.\u00a0 Sunflower and chokos over bore the tattered fences \u2013 the sunflowers were gay \u2013 we got sick of chokoes and chops.\u00a0 The little sunflower plants had leaves like the feel of a cat\u2019s tongue, raspy on the skin the loving tactile semblance of a sedge tooth file.<\/p>\n
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There used to be the depths of night shaped into gramophone horns adorning the more neglected lanes. With our bited dogs we passed the convolvulus bells with siren tendrils clutching at our throats.\u00a0 In the twilight, the vibrant blue weeds of our back yards. I never remember ever seeing a frangipani or hibiscus or any other modern exotica.\u00a0 There were scents of the evening \u2013 perhaps we were too young to notice the small white jasmines or the occasional tuberoses. Red geraniums, yes everywhere in little window boxes \u2013 not children\u2019s flowers at all \u2013 very adult.<\/p>\n
Arum lilies and cannas yes (mostly around the semi detached) -seemed to lend a glory to the necessities of human functions.<\/p>\n
Who was not enabled on the way back from the out-house by the soft lick of the lily leaves and a fairy touch brush across the face of the asparagus fern?<\/p>\n
My Grandmother had grape vines which bore somewhat edible fruit.\u00a0 She had too, a sturdy clump of verbena shrub. Somehow this seemed to go along with her personality extremely well.<\/p>\n
On Sunday afternoons after being let out of Sunday School we would aimlessly roam around the\u00a0cabbage patch (fenced off of course) past the manure bin through the carriage paint shops (as those sheds were called) all mucky & soiled. A good fistful of verbena leaves crushed up in smelly hands.\u00a0 How those verbena leaves reminded me of Grandma.<\/p>\n
Just like carraway seed cake.\u00a0 You\u2019d have to have been born in 1860 to have acquired a taste for that.\u00a0 Sunday afternoon tea was a bloody trial. Carraway seed cake and Sao biscuits, or Thin Captain. Perhaps we were given lemonade \u2013 if we had been, the occasions have left no impact on my junior memories.<\/p>\n
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