One of my favorite songs of all time is I am the Walrus by the Beatles. I love the music and the lyrics, and one of the lines that always stuck out to me the most was sitting in an English garden waiting for the sun.
I had always wondered what it would be like to sit in an English garden, because at the time, I did not realize that the British use the word garden as Americans use the world yard or lawn, and I imagined this very tranquil plant and flower garden on a cool and misty English day.
When I was in college, I had the opportunity to travel to England and study at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston for a semester. It was an absolutely beautiful area of the country and there were definitely plenty of English gardens.
As I was preparing to leave for my trip, many of my friends would ask me what I was most looking forward to when I arrived. Several of them mentioned the typical British tourist spots, like the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and Stonehenge, so they were kind of surprised when I told them that what I was most looking forward to was sitting in an English garden just like in the song.
I arrived in London and made the nearly day-long coach ride up to Preston, and within a few days I was partnered with a couple who had a spare room to rent and moved in. They asked me what I thought of Preston, with its cobblestone roads and quaint architecture, and I told them that I really loved the city.
After a week or two, when I felt I knew them well enough to ask, I told them about my desire to sit in an English garden, reminding them of the song I am the Walrus and the lyric that I had always found so intriguing. They got a big kick out of it and invited me out into their back garden, and even though I was well aware at that time that it was simply the equivalent of an American yard, it was still a very surreal experience for me.
What struck me the most was how much attention the British would give their gardens, most of which were much smaller than what you would see in the United States, and how proud they were of them.
I am not sure if it was just the fact that I had wanted to experience it for most of my life or that I grew to love England so much, but I still look back on sitting in an English garden as one of the happiest memories of my life.