Something sweet

[smokingboot]

Little things make me happy. Yesterday evening the doorbell rang, and I thought it was our expected guest,ephraim. He turned up much later and the evening sailed into sleep through steak, red wine, football and martial arts. At this point, the visitor was distinctly unephraimlike being older, female, blondish and in possession of a scotty dog.

'Excuse me,' she said in a broad Mancunian accent, 'Your flower out the back...can you tell me what it is?'

The 'flower out the back' is my passiflora. I planted it three years ago and it's turned into a monster covering the back fence and threatening the lane. Children are beginning to sidle past it cautiously. I like it because passiflora is the ultimate fast food venue for our insect nation*, who in turn bring the bats, who would bring owls etc, if my little she-cat didn't kill them all; so much for my contribution to the wildlife of the area. Also, I like any flowers that look like UFOs.

'I think it's beautiful,' continued the lady, and then, with a slightly shamefaced look on her face 'I did take one of the flowers I'm afraid, I couldn't help it. I showed my brother and he said it were a passionflower.'

'It is a passionflower,' I said, ' I'm glad you like it.'

'Aye, I do, I do,' she said, her face lit up, 'How can such a flower be? It looks like it's made of plastic till you get up close. Passionflower. He were right. Passionflower...Thank you.' She nodded her head, turned away with her little doggy and headed off into the night.

This is a very old area, mentioned in the doomsday book. Saxons and Vikings and Normans all settled here in their time. Two schools nearby, rubbish transport and not nearly enough happening. It isn't even pretty, not really.

But there's something about this neighbourhood. It's a gentle place.

*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IbyWxEq-0c

Comments

[happybat.livejournal.com]

What a lovely story! I recently moved from a 'fashionable' area into one much less so, and the main difference I am noticing (asides from the happy fact that I can afford this one) is that the people can be so much more interesting - top prize so far to the drunk chap playing the mandolin on the underground who wanted to tell me all about watching the Northern Lights in South Uist as a boy. I hesitate to say 'real people' because all people are real, but... interesting people.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

People are strange...there are certain places where they are more friendly and therefore you bump into their strangeness quickly. It's strange how round here the kids are still making wooden go-karts and dragging them behind bikes with ropes...and a bit worrying that smoking is still something they do. When our house got broken into, I only knew cos the local school phoned up. Some kids found my handbag in the playing fields and brought it in to their teachers.