Where I'm from

This is in response to Molly’s “Where I’m from…” meme. It’s been a long time coming – not because I’ve been honing a masterpiece but because my recent posts have been five-minute nonsenses, dashed off in brief intervals between horrible busy-ness; and this one required a little more thought.

I feel a bit silly presenting it. It’s rather solemn. Doesn’t seem very British. But anyway. Here we go. Mumbling slightly and shuffling our feet. Don’t read it, dear son-in-law. There aren’t going to be many pictures of cats.

I’m from the little house in the big garden where lilacs bloomed, lupins swayed, apples thumped on the lawn and, in the winter, birds’ footprints patterned the snow.

I’m from the big house by the railway where the white cat slumbered in the sun and the air was full of promise.

I’m from my grandparents’ garden: sweet peas, gyposophila, cabbages – “All that out of the earth!”

I’m from three other houses: the first furnished with wedding presents and cast-offs, the second ringing with children’s voices and the third full of books and plans and purring.

I’m from a childhood full of funny words and stories, of worries and insecurities, of sleepless nights when the sun hardly set and or when the frost scribbled on the windows and the darkness was black indeed.

School had high windows, tiled corridors, girls in navy uniforms and 100-year-old teachers (or so it seemed).

In my head are holidays in Perthshire – sheep safely grazing and tiny blaeberries on the Knock and picnics by the wide river among the towering hills of the Sma’ Glen.

I’m from Smiths and Campbells, from Boyds and Watts, from May and Jim and Tom and Ella and Isa and James, from tales of wars and bombs and of a green island with a mountain in the middle.

I’m from a city of spires and domes and hills, a university built round a city garden and from years of chalky fingers in classrooms with young learners.

I’m from a grey church by the sea with a twinkly-eyed minister where there were lots of ladies in hats and husbands in sober suits.

I’m from a long beach where the sand blew up into the gardens, and from the Quarry Park, where we played rounders on long, balmy Scottish summer evenings.

I’m from books and diaries and now from blogs, all trying to preserve a tiny part of what we are and what we were.

And just in case anyone did struggle through this far, a reward: kittens.

Edited to add: I tried to edit this the minute I'd posted it, but Blogger wouldn't let me. And now it's probably too late because many of the people who visit me have read it already. What I would have said was: how about someone else doing this meme? Lots have already done it. Anyone else care to?