Kathleen lived there for years. She had moved in with her husband and his parents who had lived their before and they had their children who now live away.
The front door is so big that when you stand in the stone porch you can't touch the walls with both hands and for an in the city house that's pretty big.
I think that Kath had some health issues and I know that she was very private person we would exchange pleasantries over the wall and chat about the garden but if we saw each other on the street or in the local shop then you could see she wasn't sure who I was.
The summer when I was pregnant she gave me a small doll that she had found somewhere with penelope written across its chest and that be one of the reasons P is named such.
Anyway in December 09, I popped in for an emergency c-section and Kath popped out for her paper and fags it was snowing and she slipped on her grand front steps and broke her hip or leg.
We were all expecting her to return as this had happened before but I think a thrombosis and a long stay in hospital was just too much and now she lives a few miles from here very happily I hear.
The house was to be sold but I took these photos last summer
This is the summer house where she would have her fag and do the crossword.
The strangest thing, white doves (surely not pigeons) settle here on this roof.
If Kath was ever away then the birds never came as soon as she came back so did the doves and she never fed them that I saw.
Her tights and carrier bags were always washed out and hung from the washing line that runs out from the top of the stairs.
The garden is lower than ours and when you are in it you can't hear the traffic.
Our cat runs up and down this wall and plays amongst the trees even if the apple ones are a bit diseased.
NOT ANY MORE
The back of the house is now painted white the bay window and the summer house is in a skip somewhere and this is my face as the chainsaw flattens everything.
This is what we call Kath's oak tree. Of course its another brand but it is so huge and blocks out the light for everyone so that's what we call it.
As I type this there is very little of it left, the apple trees are gone, mine included, my choice a long time ago, the gardens were once an orchard and I feel guilty.
I am sure that the developers will just turf the lot and stick some fashionable ferns in tubs.
It will be strange having new people in the place with their swanky BBQ's and possible trampolines and I suppose we will get used to being looked over by those living on the south side of our block.
The girls are driving us crazy with their endless questions today despite having more Lego that Denmark to play with!
CM
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