The watering can.Magpietales #26

My grandfather had a galvanised watering can at his allotments; somewhere he took me through the long summer holidays. He wheeled me there in his wheelbarrow down the main road and then down a grass filled lane. It was a big five barred gate into the allotment and you could see his shed with number 27 painted on it in green paint from the gate. As soon as we got there he took off my clean dress and put a hessian sack on me instead, my dress was hung up inside the shed on a nail.
The days there were long and sunny and I played by the water butt. I was too small to lean over it and fill his watering can so he did that for me and then I walked slowly between the rows of vegetables and soft fruit trees, dragging the heavy can and spilling out the water as I went.

‘Thats right Cariad,’ he used to say. When it was midday we ate a jam sandwiches and drank the cold sweet tea from his little can. I think it was the one he had when he was down the mines. They were such happy days and we arrived home in time for our evening meal, laden with veg and black currants. My dress was inspected by my grand mother, and Granddad and I were relieved that it passed the clean test, except my knicks were filthy where I used to sit in the dirt to play. My days at my granddad's allotment stopped when I was eight when he died. How I was to know then that they would stay in my memory forever and ever, as being some of the happiest days in my life.