Well, after years of pondering the future of the housing market, and fretting over whether we could leave our lovely flat behind for pastures new, we have taken the plunge and sold our flat. Even though we have spent tens of thousands on improving the bloomin place, it was the garden that is hardest to leave behind.
We moved here before we had children, and looking back our plants were more like pets than plants. We collected, we categorised, we watched them grow. We poured our hearts into this garden, and to be honest we filled it with our dreams and aspirations of life.
As our first garden, it gave us the chance to put into practice all the garden designs we had locked in our heads over the years of living in flats without gardens. All the plants we were desperate to grow, all the ideas we were desperate to try. Now it is time to move on. The children need more space (as do we), and the new garden will give us the chance to design it around them.
I hope the new owners enjoy the garden as much as we have. It has become rather neglected of late, because we spend all our garden energy on the allotments, but I hope they will restore it to something of its former glory. I daren’t post a photo as it looks today – it is a ruin and a sad shadow of its former self. Five years ago, our cleaners thought we were gardeners for a living, which was flattering. Since then, all our tender plants have been killed off by two successive freezing winters. Now no-one could think this garden was cared for – as we have become more and more frustrated by all the setbacks in trying to move house, we have become more and more resentful and neglectful of the place we once loved.
This makes me reflect on how quickly nature takes over where man leaves off. The circle of life and the way that we busy ourselves creating stuff during our lifetime and then hand it on to someone else to do their own thing when we depart. Moving is a time of reflection anyway, so my emotions are finely tuned.
So here is the swansong of our flat garden, a place where many many happy times have been had and many memories will remain, before we say a welcome to the new garden at the new house, pictured below.
It is bittersweet to leave a garden, you have the excitment of the new but the loss of the old. Good luck with the move. I look forward to seeing what magic you craft here.
Our garden was completely over grown but as we cleared it we were able to see that I was once very much loved.
Your garden looked such a loved place and I’m sure the new owners will be able to see that under all the recent neglect and hopefully put their stamp on it when they take over.
bittersweet to be leaving one garden and welcoming another. I think you grow in and out of houses and it will be lovely to have your girls involved with how the new garden develops. All the best with the move and perfect timing in the gardening world. Happy sowing :o)
I do hope you’re soon enjoying the new garden just as much. We will likely be moving at the end of summer (if all goes according to plan), and so I perfectly understand your bittersweet contemplation of the garden you leave behind. It was beautiful, and I hope that is the way you choose to remember it years from now. 🙂
Thanks for your lovely comments. At the moment we are still unpacking and settling in to the new place, but I can see that in time we will make it into just as loved and cherished home as the old one.
It is strange how you look forward to something so much that when you actually get it, it is hard for it to live up to the huge expectations.
For years and years I have dreamed of living in a house rather than a flat. It has become a preoccupation for some reason.
Now I am feeling strangely destabilised by the move, but I also know I will come out the other side feeling very grateful for our good fortune.
Having said that, I also realise that having that luck or not should not have made any single day less or more than it could otherwise have been.