Re-Visiting the Past

SerimalB in a Pickle "Pickles" just months old, she will be 7 years old next month

This weekend I seem to have been guided back into my past. I am not sure why because I tend not to look back and I certainly don't have any regrets in my life. I think that my trip into Wrexham town with the boys might have started the process, as we walked around once familiar streets, streets I have walked for over 40 years, remembering, thinking, mourning the changes.

I decided to pay a visit to John and Ruth, the couple I used to groom for over 30 years ago. They gave me my first pony Shilo who was a rescue and I later had my last horse Mac there. I went to many shows with John over the years and helped him prepare the ponies for classes..... Cadenza and Opal. I saw little Pickles when she was minutes old and helped back and school horses for him. Happy, care free days.

May 26th 1983 - English Class, Ysgol Dewi Sant

I particularly remember his goat "Gruff" and this one day, John left a cardboard box full of vegetable peelings near to him. Gruff ate the box and left the peelings! I still giggle about this decades on.

Topsy

It was quite a sad experience returning there because John and Ruth have grown so old and the puppy I last saw is now an old dog with cataracts. I still feel as though I am 19 but facing my past I have to accept my mortality.

Harry Llewelyn

Chirk Castle gardens, me, Harry and Joe looking for fish and dragonflies

I have spent alot of time thinking over the last couple of years and wishing things had been different. I wish I hadn't had cancer because the long treatment which made me so ill, robbed me of my childrens youth. One minute they were 7 and 9 and the next minute they had grown up before my eyes. I feel as though I have missed out on a vital part of their lives.

My past has shaped me into the person I am today. The people who come in and out of my life at various times are the ones who have enriched me.

Lets continue our walk....

The Castle has been lived in since it was built by Edward I in order to keep the welsh in place. During the civil war the castle was ordered to be raised to the ground by Oliver Cromwell and alot of the castle was damaged. The Middleton family lived in the castle until a couple of years ago and still have apartments in the Batchelor Tower. This view was taken from the buildings previously unseen by the public.

I love this part of the garden, it is full of colour and life. The picture doesn't do it justice.

Down one of the many footpaths you stumble upon the gravestones of pets who once belonged to the Castle.

A little further on and you come to the thatched summer house.

The flowers were breathtaking! The perfume off them was devine.

No garden would be complete without a water feature!

Let me take you for a walk.......

Yesterday, my husband and I spent the afternoon in Chirk Castle which is local to us. We went there for lunch then enjoyed a peaceful walk around the gardens. I took so many photographs, way too many for one post so I will take you on a walk with me around the gardens over a few postings!

This flower caught my eye instantly because of its colour - it was so beautiful, reminding me of blue skies or blue oceans....

This little fella was sitting all on his own on the other side of the ditch! He had his head tilted at a very cheeky angle!

A little place to sit and chill tucked neatly away right at the edge of the gardens. We sat there for a while listening to nothing - no cars, no children, no dogs barking, no people...... It was devine!