Four important walls

This post is inspired by, and dedicated to Eden and her Gimme Shelter post and linky-business. Go head over there and join the sharing circle.

I was born in Sydney and after my Mum and Dad split up when I was 1.5 my grandparents used to take me for weekends at a time so Mum could study. So every weekend of my young childhood and then every school holidays after that until I was 17 was spent at this house in W.hale B.each.

I loved this place, every nook and cranny of it.  I loved the smell of the walls and the feel of the sandstone pillars. I loved the sound of the surf down the road, the salty tang to the air and the magnificent gardens my grandfather built so lovingly.

I walked up and down those stairs for years. Finding eggs the Bunny had left for me. Playing with my Little People and my new red patent leather shoes with the little bow on the front. Skipping up with a towel over my shoulder ready to trek down the street to the beach. Imagining I was a princess in my secret garden, waiting for the prince to find me. Being chased by monsters all over and around.

I sat out on that balcony more times than I can remember. Eating prawns and chips with salty, lemony fingers and listening to my Gramps tell me how delicious the heads were (yuk!). Late at night watching the lightning roll in across the sea, flashing pink and white through the big dark sky. Dandling my various cousins on my knee playing This Little Piggie on countless little toes. Posing for smiling happy family photos in groups and pairs and just by myself.

This beach is as much a part of that house as the gardens and the balcony. I learnt to jump over waves and read the surf. My Gramps tossed me over waves I couldn't jump while my mother and aunts and Granny sunbathed on the sand. He taught me to watch for rips and smell the rain coming on that beach and  I left my footprints there forever. Forever doesn't last long on a beach. I wish, so bad, that I could go back and visit those days. Stay in that house again with my extended family, eat Gramps' spaghetti and play bridge and listen to the grown-ups talking politics and religion and gossip.