Life...

...is a bit all over the place at the moment. Last Thursday was results day and I got Bs in English Language and Media Studies, and As in Psychology and Spanish. Myself, Eliza, Danny and Eleanor went out on Friday evening as a sort of celebration which was very much needed after not seeing them since Monday 11th July. It's bad that I know that, right?

Other than that I've been spending a lot of time at my grandma's house gardening and restoring bits of the garden. She has a HUGE tree that, when we were little, myself, Amy and George (yes, that's us in that awful picture...and Winnie the Pooh...) used to make dens underneath. And by make dens, I mean we pretty much set up home underneath that tree. We had fencing and everything. 


I decided to make it my little mission to clear around the tree - everything was overgrown and several plants - including a huge, definitely unwanted holly bush - made it impossible to get anywhere near the tree. 

We started off by pulling the yellow slide we had out from underneath the tree - somehow it ended up at my grandma's house and somehow it ended up on its side underneath 'the katkin tree', and nobody ever thought to move it because nobody is anywhere near young enough to care about it anymore. 

Me, my grandma and my brother (Daniel) spent two afternoons cutting and sawing away at the tree and bits around it until the ground was finally clear. Arguably, it's nowhere near the same at almost 18 as it was when I was 8, but there it was - childhood.

Ten years ago, I would have been sitting on a little wooden chair underneath that very same tree, tidying up our 'house' or 'cooking for us all' - you know, taking care of the home... And now? Exactly the same. Only now, it's not pretend. Harvesting the blackberries, potatoes and tomatoes now is exactly the same as when we used to harvest the 'egg flowers' (don't even ask...), only now, it's real. 

We even had our own little shed. I remember painting it with Amy and George one afternoon. It used to be the shed at my house, and then we kind of outgrew it and it got moved to my grandma's house. We painted the shed outside, we painted it a pale blue inside, we found some old fabric and made a curtain to go against the window, someone put down left over carpet, we had a table, chairs, we even had a painting that I believe was created by Amy. We had a 'patio' at the back and, again, we put fencing up and made it our own little house. But this was after the days of the tree dens, of course. 

And then I went to high school, Amy left high school, George was still in high school, and the magic of childhood very slowly began to fade away. Grandma's house - the symbol of my childhood - was suddenly just a house. 

But, recently, I've realised that no matter how old I am and how mature I think I am, one thing will always remain the same - memories. I know that I'll be able to walk around that garden and see it as something much, much more than just a garden. And, while life might seem terrible, my memories will always be there to carry me through.

So it might be goodbye to childhood, but it's hello to growing up, and I can't say I mind at all.


Besos ♥ 
Rachel