Secret Gardens

There are many gated gardens in the part of London I walk through every day. Each one announces its privacy in a peculiar show of insecurity - a truly private garden doesn't need to advertise itself to the world. Nor does it need rules of behaviour, except those that are privately understood.

The gates are never so high that they are unscalable, and it's a mark of English decorum that people are not seen routinely vaulting over the flimsy defences. Walking past these semi-private sanctuaries, I catch a glimpse of yellow flowers, like the flash of a petticoat.

Through gaps in the hedge perfect lawns, majestic trees, serene borders shyly reveal themselves in these almost always empty spaces. They are rarely used, even by those with the magic key - perhaps the absence of human figures populating the space is what creates the calm.

At times I wish I could enter these magical realms, but the wiser part of me fears that entering through the gate would break the spell. So I continue spying from the edges, watching the seasons unfold in these otherwise unchanging spaces.