The Three Trees

Three 30-40 metre trees stood tall at the bottom of the garden at my mothers childhood home, always stood tall against the wind, their dark green colour contrasting with the bright green grass from the park behind the back fence. Towards the bottom of these trees, my imagination created an imaginary den from some rope, a tyre, branches, sticks and wooden planks. In my eyes, I had seen nothing bigger than this ‘tree house’ that I was seeing, made from odd planks of wood, rectangular and square shapes of different woody tones. Dozens of dirty windows in all sorts of places and shapes and sizes, doors and hatches placed in convenient places to get from one place to the next. The tree house made to work with and incorporate the trunk growing through its centre, a small ‘staircase’ curving round the trunk upwards with the trees branches to the next level of the centre den. Wooden rope bridges connecting one tree house to the next on the other tree, ropes dangling down with tyres and sticks attached for swings and ropes for abseiling down like a fireman’s pole, wooden planks nailed into the trunks to form ladders up into the trees. Small porches or balconies surrounded each of tree houses made, one side looking over the garden and the other looking over the wide open space of the park, like its own large kingdom. The place ideal for playing hide and seek or just a child’s pretend adventures, climbing higher into the trees, swinging as high as possible and being the ‘fastest’ to get up into the air.

These three great trees with the vision of this tree house attached made me feel small, even being the oldest child there at the age of 9 made me feel small, similar to how I imagine an ant would feel looking at a bird house, it was like our own castle. The idea of this tree house was shared with 4 others, each bickering about what should be on it, in it and what it could look like. But each time in my eyes this tree house only got better until I started getting older and visiting less, when family moved away and was no longer there when I was, I started seeing it as childish. I still do now, but I see it as fun and enjoyable memories to have as a child. In my imagination, this tree house was achievable, yet only at the time it was a few measly planks and a tyre swing hanging from one of its branches. None of which are no longer there, but the trees still are, they still stand there strong against the wind, towering over the rest of the garden.