Tribute to my childhood home

This is a black and white photo taken of the back of my childhood home in 1994 (not scanned but rather I took a pic of it), just moments before my twin sis was married in our lovely backyard.

Here's that same home some 14 years later when my Mom and I went to visit it in 2008, a good eight years after they moved out. The home was empty, but it was trashed and delapitated and so sad.

And, as one of my oldest friends told me over Facebook the other day, that house has now been torn down. So I'm going to share some of my fave memories and pics of the home I grew up in and lived in until I was 19!

The First Day of School shot under the kitchen window at the back of the house (I'm on the left and my twin is on the right) was an annual ritual. This is us our first day of grade 9.

Here we are again (me on the right this time) in the front yard in April in the early-mid 1970s with our blue ponchos. Aren't we bloody cute? We grew up in the country so we played outside all the time. Every tree and field carries a lovely memory.

Our beautiful lilac bush in the front yard, close to where the poncho pic was snapped, was always a glory. We would snip the fragrant branches off and pile them in huge rose bowls placed in front of windows, so the sweet lilacy scent would blow throughout the house.

Here I am wearing an emerald green dress with mega shoulder pads (next to my Mom on the left) in the Spring of 1988, when I was a mere 18. Sigh. Collagen is another thing that's disappeared over the years.

In 2008, that same lilac bush, which had been transplanted years earlier to accommodate a new well (yes I kid you not: we grew up with a well). You can see the overgrowth and general crap littered throughout the yard.

Behind the lilac bush up a gently sloping hill was what we called The Sandpile, essentially a sandy field that farmers attempted to plant in for years. But when my sis and I were really young, it was just a sandpile, and we would play in it even though it was a good five minute walk from home. We could see the house from our vantage point up the hill, and I'll never forget Mom and her friend, who were having coffee in the house on day when we were playing in the pile, telling us  to wave our arms if we wanted help and they would see us.

By the time I was 14 when this silly pic was taken (in May of 1984 - can you see the 'rat's tail' at the back of my short hair cut? I imported the look from England a few months earlier after a school trip there and was the first in my school to have one, ahem. Then every one got one and I chopped mine off), the farmers had abandoned The Sandpile again. I used to love coming up here in my angsty teen years. I'd watch the beautiful sunsets to the west. It was calming, and a very special memory.

That sandpile in 2008: grown over. Barely recognizable; kind of like you'd image the decay described in The Day of the Triffids to unfold.

I'll end on a happier note: Christmas in the early-mid 1970s, with my twin (standing) and me (with almost blond hair? Maybe it was the light) in front of the gift that henceforth and throughout our childhood was called The Little Table. The green metal table with vinyl floral top and chair covers was set up permanently in the kitchen, and when company came over, my sisters and I would dine at it.Otherwise we'd use it for Tea Parties.

That Little Table is still in my parents' basement! My sister used it when her kids were growing up!!

More to come tomorrow. Thanks for reading.