Sophia's Page

From a young age, my Grandma taught me a lot of things. She taught me what to do with windfall apples, how to darn socks with a sock darner, and how to rrroll my rrrs in Spanish.

She showed me how to harvest the raspberries at the bottom of the garden, when I wasn’t re-ordering her collection of buttons in the sewing cupboard, or hunting for sleepy hedgehogs in the compost heap in her lovely garden.

I also remember her quoting lines of this poem on many occasions.

Leisure by William Henry Davies

'What is life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stop and stare.'