Gardens

There is something very satisfying about seeing my boys playing in the sunshine. This weekend has been the first dry weekend forever (well, it feels like that anyway) and although they do play outside in all weathers they have, this weekend, spent most of their waking hours in the garden. Apart from the wonderful fact that when it is dry they do not walk mud all through the house, I just love to watch them having their adventures.

I have given up having a garden which is beautiful. Instead I have a garden in which my boys can have adventures, take risks and make up their own games. Times have changed since those 'Just William' days when children would be out of the house from dawn until dusk making dens, building bridges over streams and climbing trees but I have tried to let my garden be one of possibilities for them. Mostly, it has worked.

This weekend they have spent hours out there with hammers, nails and old offcuts of wood transforming their 'playhouse' into a 'nerf base'. To my unseeing eyes, it looks like a piece of old junk but to them it is a wonderful creation. Their masterpiece. They worked so hard on it together. If I was to include it in a CV, I would write "Team building activities".

As I type they are kicking footballs into a tree and working out different methods of retrieving them. So far they have used rope, an old bike tyre, a stepladder and an enormous pole. They don't even realise they are learning as they play.

One day, when they have their own families, I might be able to have a beautiful garden full of flowers that won't be trampled on. But at the moment, I don't need flowers to bring me joy. My joy is complete in seeing the sunshine streaming onto their muddy faces, their legs hanging out of a tree and a rope dangling precariously from a ladder.