I Have Fairies In The Middle Of Me Garden......

Ok........ I think I have fairies in the middle of me garden..... cos this morning in the rain I spied this.......



It stopped me in me tracks as I hobbled down the garden early this morning to let Janet out...... I LOVE Toadstools.... so love em.... its growing out of the stump where me old apple tree use to be..... remember this post...

here

It was the most beautiful little toadstool...... just growing there all on its own...... I so attached meself with it lol....... the lonely little toadstool growing where nothing else would......

Anyways, if ya have been a blob reader of mine for a while you will probably know that me head overflows with shelves and shelves of memories all stacked high, but it sometimes takes a jog or a nudge or a vision or even a single word, to make me mind unscramble a memory...... and as I bent to take the photo of this little lonely toadstool I had this memory flash into me head.....

I was a bout 8ish or 9ish.... I was a right proper Tomboy, well we use to live on this well rough council estate But at the bottom of our close, we at least had this stream and a long long strip of wide waste land...... if you can imagine a capital letter E, the long part of the E was the wasteground and the little arms of the E was our close(street) and the closes(streets) next to ours and the next one.... all in a straight line and backing onto this wasteground with the stream and the most wonderful tall oak trees along the stream...... so to me as a kid this wasteground and stream and trees was my heaven, was my haven, was my place of retreat, was my safety ..... I would spend hours and hours in the stream and making dens in the tall tall stinging nettles and grasses that grew there..... we called it 'The Dumps' but it was not a dumping ground for rubbish, it was a dumping ground for all us kids from the council estate..... we would have fights against our close(street) and the close next to us, our close was a unit and we sometimes acted as one..... its hard to explain lol......

We would make up competitions with the kids from the other closes(streets) that backed onto the Dumps..... ya know, daft things like, who could swing across the stream on the rope swing and jump off and try and land on the bank on the other side....... which close(street) could build the bestest dam to stop the water in the stream, and who could catch the most StickleBacks(tiny steam fishes) in jamjars...... and who had the guts to swallow one alive.... yep that was me LOL..... who would squeeze through the overflow pipe that was just wide enough for a childs skinny body and crawl along and come out the other side of the main road..... yep that was me...... I did get stuck once and the firebrigade had to come and extract me LOL...... I didnt tell them me name or me parents would of skinned me alive lol

Those were the times of childhood that I hold so dear, those days - cos at weekends I would go down the dumps from the minute I got up until it got dark, and never went home for dinner, and in those days, no parent gave a dam where I was.... those are the precious times when I was free and knew that at least during those hours there would be no beatings, no punishments.... unless..... god forbid I got me shoes wet in the stream, so most of the time I would take off me shoes and socks and just run barefoot all day, and hide me shoes and socks under Kenny Marshes hedge LOL..... maybe now thats why I love not wearing shoes and only wear them when I REALLY have to......

Anyways, sorry, going off track here LOL.......... so the toadstools...... when a new kid came to live in one of the closes there would be an iniitiation thing...... where they had to 'do something' to be able to be in the group.......LOL....... I remember I wanted to change groups once and I had to sit in a chair down the dumps that had been covered in stinging nettles in just me shorts and t-shirt LOL..... well I remember when E and G Fewwings moved to number 9 - there was only 12 houses in our close(street) after a few months they wanted to join in with stuff down the dumps....... so M Bennyworth told them that they had to eat a bowl of toadstools....... JEBUS...... I remember then thinking and knowing that Toadstools are poison and could kill, but no matter how many times I spoke up they took no notice....... I remember telling the 2 boys NOT to eat the toadstools and that they could just hang with me down the dumps..... but, no, they wanted so desparately to be part of the crowd..... whereas me, it didnt make no odds....

I remember Gary started crying cos he said he didnt wanna die....... jebus, this is so very clear in me head :(....... I remember him saying that his mum and dad would miss him LOL...... jebus, even now I remember thinking how lucky he was to even think that.... and how sad if he died cos Martin had made him eat toadstools just to be part of a group........

So...... I volunteered to eat the Toadstools for him AND his brother, cos I remember thinking that no one would miss me, so it wouldnt matter, and if Eric and Gary so desparately wanted to be part of the group, then they needed it more then me......

So....... I ate the bowl of mixed toadstools dirt and all lol..... there must of been about 20..... I remember everyone standing there waiting for me to drop dead LOL....... but I didnt...... well not there and then lol....... this was one Saturday morning..... but I remember within a few hours not feeling very well and having the squirts and me eyes going strange ..... and I remember walking to Kenny Marshs house and getting me shoes and socks from under the hedge and seeing his mum cos I was to scared to go home...... I remember an ambulance coming and being taken to hospital........ I remember me stomach being pumped and spending 2 days in ICU lol....... I remember not wanting to live cos I knew I would have to face me parents when I went home...... I remember Mrs Marsh coming to the hospital to take me home..... and.... I remember the thrashing of a lifetime I got from me dad and then me mum when me dad went to work...... not a love thrashing cos they was glad I didnt die, but a thrashing with a belt for making fools of them and embarrassing them....... lol...... and I remember having the week off of school cos of being in hospital and eating the Toadstools and then a fortnight off of school cos of the thrashing, and having to tell everyone that I was still poorly from having eaten the toadstools, I even remember me teacher coming to visit and me desparately wanting to tell her why I was not at school.......

So........... I have fairies at the bottom of me garden and memories stacked on the shelves of me mind...... maybe it was those fairies that looked out for me that time.... who knows..... maybe it was just me stubborn will to survive childhood and life.....

OK, spilled way to much Twaddle for a wet Tuesday.....

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