FebulousFebruary 2025: Lost and Found

Pound Lane

Sleepless in bed I take an imaginary tour around my childhood garden, pass the lorry-sized tyre-swing, peek in at a wren’s nest full of eggs. My dad crouches down to the ground listening to radio 4 while he grubs out apple trees every sunny Saturday morning I sit and watch still worried now about killing food trees. 

I wander on til I arrive at the dense laurel hedge that dominates the edge. There are glasses clinking, people laughing and the sounds of a party going on in the garden beside ours. I’m confused because Mr and Mrs Button live next door, my pretend grandparents, whose house smells of fresh yeasty bread and something strange and fusty. 

I gaze at the evergreen, hurt by the noise, still too only-child to bear missing out, even now. Everywhere is the ‘lily of the valley’ smell I crave, but those party noises. Gone are the knot puzzles Mr Button would quietly help me solve, with patient stretch and soft pull however much I strained to tighten the string and the glass of barley sugar water Mrs Button handed me that I never did drink.  

What stays is the sound of new owners celebrating and the painful price of change.

Maj Ikle

Wales