Our house is right at the end of a cul-de-sac, so as you drive down our road, you can see it at the bottom, in front of you. If you came down our road by mistake, you have to turn round outside our house in a large, semi-circular area, and then tootle back up the way you came. However, if you walk or cycle down our road, when you get to the end you’ll notice there is a proper path leading down beside our house and that takes you through to another road, Westfield Close. It too is a cul-de-sac, but it only has houses on one side, on the other is the Victory Hall, our village hall. From my writing room, at the back of our house, I can see down Westfield Road. It is only very short, three semi-detached houses, before it joins one of the main roads through the village.
Our children were quite young when we moved here, and my daughter, always very active, liked going out on her roller-skates or her bike with her friend, and would go round and round the semi-circular area outside the house. When they were older and more proficient, they would go off through the village, but as youngsters they just were happy to go round and round, chattering away, laughing, content to be outside and active.
The house at the bottom of Westfield Close – the one which is adjacent to our back garden and facing the village hall, is where a lovely and very friendly family live. When we first moved here, their sons were very young, and they were always out in the front garden, usually with a cricket ball which they would bowl to each other, sometimes with a football they would kick about. I would hear them chattering and laughing and calling out and as they grew older, their voices became deeper, and they would more often be bowling and batting than playing footie. They went on to college and eventually moved away but the parents still lived there, and we’d wave at them whenever we walked past if they were in the garden.
Now the boys have children of their own, and they would bring them to visit their grandparents, and they would play out in the front garden, and race around in the cul-de-sac on their tricycles and peddle cars. Now they are a little older, they come down the path beside our garden, and they ride round the turning circle at the front of our house, laughing and chattering to each other as my daughter and her friend did, and as the children’s dads did. I guess when they are a little older they will begin to play football or cricket, and we’ll here the sound of bat on ball!
The only images I can find for this is of a row of bicycles in Oxford!
Lois Elsden 