Hide and Seek

       The paths between the beds lend themselves perfectly to hide and seek and the children play oblivious to the picture beyond their game. They are absorbed by the simple pleasures of their own world. I am invited in.
    'Your turn to count Mummy". They run to hide as I look away counting aloud the first few numbers.
      I am left in peace in an enchanted secret garden of exotic ferns, red hot pokers, proteas and succulents, rhododendron and camellia, Cyprus, Eucalyptus and bottlebrush. Industrious bees drone in the bottle brush blooms sounding like the rubber of bicycle tread on rain drenched streets. Their chaos belies the governance of the hive where direction must be followed, cells filled with life giving nectar, the queen protected. A pheasant struts into view and stops, eyeing me from his red pirate-patch eyes. I get the distinct feeling that I am the one being watched, the outsider. I am not very interesting and he walks slowly away, unperturbed. Squirrels chatter as they dart unseen from branch to branch. I know from the guide that they are Red squirrels not the common greys. They were introduced here a few years ago as an experiment and seem to be flourishing thanks to the lack of natural predators. As I continue my count, one appears on the path ahead of me and sits for a moment on its haunches, tail curled up over its back in a Victorian Christmas card pose, then scampers away, corkscrewing up the trunk of a tree, undeterred by the change to a near vertical plane. For a moment I contemplate abandoning the children's game just to wonder aimlessly in this place. I could make my excuses, let them believe they were just too good at hiding. There is a tempting wooden bench, in the shade of a tall drooping tree, with lichen growing on it so thick that the bench looks as if it is cushioned. How long must it have stood undisturbed to develop this degree of decoration? I could be the Miss Haversham of this bench and wait for all to be as it should be. I would become a mysterious lichen laden lady of the glades instead of the  cobwebbed wedding breakfast's bride. Not today.
   "...forty nine, fifty, coming, ready or not." I set off in what I hope is the right direction and almost instantly catch sight of half hidden clothing behind the most enormous dandelion I have ever seen, a dandelion tree. This one is not coming out with a garden fork, maybe a fork-lift. I determinedly  look to the other side of the path  peering obviously high and low as I go, and walk on towards the sound of running water.  An amphora lays on its side pouring its elixir through daisies into a pond filled more  thickly with the leathery leaves of water lilies than with water. I trail my fingertips lazily across the surface, pressing down a lily pad and letting droplets pool on its glossy surface, the glint of the sun catching in the orbs. I day dream watching the hover and glide of a damsel fly its translucent wings seem holographic in the sun. I turn to look down the length of another path and am sure I see a flash of my son's hat through the stand of bamboo.
    "Your too good, I give up. Marco?"
    "Polo." I move forward colliding into my impatient daughters excited hug and watch as the hat disappears deeper into shadow.
    "Come on, let's find him together. Marco?"
    "Polo."
My daughter and I follow the  audible trail to its conclusion and we are all united in happy chatter. We sit at the secret heart of the garden in the lap of Gaia and know we are truly blessed to be in this place together.