A forest of sunflowers

Today I have some creative writing for you - a writing group exercise this week.
My grandmother did have a huge vegetable garden, and there was a man that lived over the lane we used to visit, but I don't remember his name, and I don't remember any sunflowers, so this story is partly true and partly fictional.

A Forest of Sunflowers

There is a forest of sunflowers at the bottom of my grandmother’s garden, up against the back picket fence between the chook pen and the outhouse under the weeping trees.

The sunflowers are so tall that when we stand amongst them we can only just see over the top. We crouch down on the dusty dry red dirt amongst their stiff scratchy stalks. The sunflower heads are so big they form a canopy shading us from the hot sun and casting a yellow glow over us. Sometimes we take a book with us and read it sitting amongst the sunflowers. It’s our secret world where anything is possible.  As we doze in the sun the world of the Faraway Tree comes to life under the sunflowers.

Please click on "read more" to keep reading!

Beyond the sunflowers is grandma’s big vegetable garden stretching all the way from the back veranda to the chook pen. It seems like every vegetable you can imagine is growing there.  Every day grandma collects vegetables from the garden for our dinner, pulling up potatoes, onions and carrots with the dirt still clinging to their bulbs. Dirt pathways run between the beds and after our bath and on washing day we scoop the water out of the bath or the laundry trough with a can and water the garden.    

It’s fun to help grandma dig in the garden beds and push the seeds into the damp earth that we have watered with our bath water.  But our favourite place is the sunflower patch.

It’s a mystery how the sunflowers came to grow there. Grandma says she didn’t plant the seeds. Perhaps old Mr Rosini who lives in the little cottage over the back lane threw the seeds over the fence one day when he was cleaning out his budgie’s cage.  When we sit amongst the sunflowers we can hear him talking in Italian to his budgie, and Bluie talks back to him. Sometimes we go with our Aunt to Mr Rosini's house, taking with us fresh warm bread that Grandma has just taken out of her big black oven.  He turns on his radio so we can listen to the “children’s hour” and he pulls off chunks of the soft bread for us and slathers it with jam.

My Aunt says Mr Rosini has lived there since the war. Perhaps the sunflowers are how he repays Grandma for her kindness.

Thank you so much for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed this little creative writing exercise. You can see some more creative writing by clicking on the tab "creative writing"

Enjoy the rest of your week and weekend. My computer had a dizzy fit this week, so hence this brief post. I hope to have all my photos back and be back again with regular posts next week.

cheers
Jill

Note: I have just asked my Aunt about the man. His name was Bill Gard. He was a bachelor and lived in a one room cottage. Grandfather used to go and chat with him for a couple of hours on Sundays.