This means -for me- time to scout my favourite sites for the early snowdrops and crocuses.
As you may remember , my favourite site had been the rambling wall by the kindergarten adjacent to the local church. This wall had been destroyed and the kindergarten torn down for development. Last year my spring blogg was about the survival of the crocus in-spite of all the upheaval. In fact they had multiplied and I marveled at the endurance of nature as the crocuses pushed their way around the heavy construction site.
I haven't visited this site for the past year as I found it too distressing to watch this massive destruction of a lovely place, but last week I decided to walk down the lane and check it out. The homely little lane had been covered in brick layout beautifully designed, very tasteful and spotlessly clean. There was no way a random weed would dare present itself- anyway there wasn't a crack allowed to mar this perfect surface.
I walked down this pristine lane and unto the street and was faced with three new big ultra modern homes with "for sale" signs. The homes were perfect examples of modern architecture with perfect handkerchief sized gardens, a minuscule lawn and each with two miniature trees in pots with perfectly trimmed round foliage. The small area that was not covered in perfect tarmac was covered in ground coverage that had waxlike leaves and subfusc colouring. Nothing could have been chosen that was more artificial than that ground covering and nature definitely did not create either the trees or the turf-like grass. There was no room for a crocus anywhere.
As I looked at this new development I found myself asking three questions.
These houses were on a quiet street close to shopping areas, schools and parks. The whole development area was huge and could have been perfect to build low cost housing units for low income families. It is well known there is a lack of low cost housing in Victoria.
The next question is why did the church not take this opportunity to use this excess property to help the impoverished? Or did they use the famous biblical quote " the poor are always with us" as excuse? Or did the lure of expensive real estate cloud their judgement? Or another question-there are more than three questions after all- are churches still exempt from property taxes?
The next question was-What happened to the kindergarten and where are the children? At this point I heard childish laughter and saw the wall. Peeking through the a gap in the wall I saw several children playing in a small sandpit, several on a small swing and several playing on the ground -there was no grass. The playground was narrow with the garage of one house serving as a protective wall and the church wall as the other-a rather forbidding place. There was a fine plaque on the wall stating this tiny piece of land was dedicated to the children by the company building this development.
My last burning question was-:where are the crocuses? there were none.
