I am the Key Master

(Quick houskeeping note: "This Weekend ..." will be posted tomorrow. It's a bank holiday weekend her in Blighty, so we are all lounging by rivers in the sun drinking Pimms for another day yet...)

So, there I was yesterday afternoon, pottering around at home, and generally dodging sitting down and making jewellery for the forthcoming Open House event, when my shuffling took me into the garden.

I pulled up a few weeds, dead-headed a few flowers, and noticed that there was a damned sight more that needed doing that I couldn't quite pluck up the enthusiasm for, when I noticed something on my garden table.


There, on the glass, not in the middle, but safely away from the edge, was a key. Not a nice shiny new key, or even a very large key, but a key nevertheless. It's not rusty, but it's well weathered and if there ever were any discerning features, they have long since been worn away. It's the simplest key that a key can be, and still be a key.

But where did it come from?

My house in the middle of a terrace of about 20 houses. There's no back alley, so the only way into my garden is either through the house, or over ten fences in either direction. The back wall is the 20 ft high school wall. No-one's coming over that baby. So if I didn't put the key there (and I didn't) then who did? Was it flung over a few fences or the school wall? Did a passing bird of fox drop it from their more appetising haul?

Or was it left there by fairies ...?!

And what does it open? It's not for anything in my garden. There are no doors or gates or ins or outs. Not that I've noticed so far, anyway. I've mentioned it to Mother Tooting, who thinks I should leave it, in the hopes that it's joined by a cake that is iced with the words, "Eat Me", or maybe a White Rabbit in a waistcoat. My neighbour Suzanne thinks that it's almost certainly the key to a secret garden.

Either option seems likely to me.

So in the mean time, I've left it on the table. I think that it should stay there, don't you? Maybe someone's lost it and will come looking. Or maybe one day a tantalising door will spring up to go with it. Or maybe it will grow into a key tree right there in my back yard.



Meanwhile, if anyone thinks that their keyring looks a bit light, do let me know.