In the 23 years that I have been alive, and the 24 for Rachel, we have lived in many places, each one being a little chapter that began and ended with a very uniform Forces lifestyle. However, this cannot really be said of our time in Montgomery, Alabama, for our time there was truly a unique experience and undoubtedly branched out from what we had until this point been subjected to.
Our homes before America were generally Forces quarters on RAF bases and we were nestled within a cosy bubble. This certainly wasn't a bad thing, but everything about our time in Alabama was novel. Our house for a start was a bungalow - in fact, all the houses in the area were, with the exception of the grand plantation houses. We had a basketball net on our front drive, which barely merited being called a hoop since it was in an almost fully disintegrated state. The drive was always covered with little prickly shells from next door's tree and so we had to tread carefully when darting around the side of the house to the garden. The tarmac was usually incredibly hot, since temperatures in the summer often soared through the 90s and I remember it sizzled when it got wet, producing a scent that to this day is hugely evocative.
There was a dodgy looking shed at the top of our garden that lurked in the shadow of a monstrous hairy tree that housed who knows how many poisonous snakes, spiders and conspicuous forms of shrubbery.
In retrospect I think we really took our pool for granted. I can't remember ever thinking what a luxury it was to have entire pool to ourselves in the privacy of our own garden. It was just part of the wonderful America experience. Rachel and I used it without exception every day in the summer and autumn, and occasionally in the spring - convincing ourselves it was warm enough on my birthday in late March, which it never was.
Spiders were, I seem to remember, abundant in the pool, although we only happened upon a couple of really ugly looking ones. On one specific occasion, Rachel and I were sunbathing in the pool on our respective inflatable pool whales when I opened my eyes and spotted a large spider on the fin of my whale. I threw myself backwards into the water in a comic display of arms and legs and exited the pool in a scrambling fashion. On close examination, and with the aid of our trusty spider-recognising book, Rachel, Mummy and I discovered its name was a Rabid Wolf Spider. Well, the name says it all really. Rabid. Wolf. Spider. It was hideous. If you know what a Humbug sweet looks like - black and yellow/white stripes - this spider might have been mistaken for one. But worse in appearance as it had legs, fangs and little creepy black eyes. They are in fact, utterly harmless but renowned for their ability to scare people horrendously.
[I went to find a photo to display here but got the shivers and decided I couldn't face tainting my page with such horrific images, so I've attached a link below. Peruse at your peril......]
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