page 05

The weather side of the house was protected by slate tiles on which the members of the family and good friends put their marks for posterity. Also one could find names and hearts cut into the trunks of the Birch trees, as both the young sisters of my mother and their fiances had done.

In front of the slate wall was the beloved place of two Aunts next to a beautiful lime tree and a lower enclosed square, further on protected Beeches. On the left of the urn, behind a long Beech path, was the bleaching area with a pump and vegetable garden which was bordered by fruit trees and berry bushes.

Round the whole plot ran a low hawthorn hedge as a fence, in which countless birds nested. Grandfather was a friend of birds. He distinguish every bird song and mimic closely. In Autumn and Winter wild geese and other strange birds out of the arctic flew  over our garden. Some nested in the chandeliers of the two old Aunts. Also at their house two squirrels helped themselves to nuts and all sorts of tasty bits from the fruit bowl, through the always open window. One time a young cuckoo sat on a washing pole in the bleaching area and let its foster parents feed it. I myself held two Jackdaws one of which called my name and flew around me as I came home from school.

Behind the fence Grandmother's brother, who loved her a lot, planted every conceivable trees and shrubs , not just the usual local ones, but also rarer ornamental shrubs. Next Turkish, Persian and white Lilac, laburnum, Eisbeerenstrauchern, viburnum and hawthorn, one saw