My Dream of Lardy Cakes.

Fallen rainbows adorned the puddled path and roadside gutters as I made my way to Gardeners bakery that day. Busy feet and splashes from cars made swirling kaleidoscopes of them. Then in a rare moment of stillness amongst the dinner hour crowd I caught my reflection. I wore the pale blue sky like a halo, the skin on my face like a silk gown seemed to glow with the fire of youth. Then a splash from a Midlands Electricity Board van broke the filmy mirror and set this image spinning in a crimson kissed tide.
Gardeners bakery was a magical place, and always had been for me. A place where my father would bring me on cold Saturday mornings for Lardy cakes, a place where red faced big bosomed baker women would conjure up huge trays of sweet smelling sausage rolls still steaming from the glass fronted ovens. Some of my best memories of me and my father were locked to this place, where every smell was an attack on your very soul, every taste a sweet reminder of un-broken promises. but that was back then, and this is now, things have changed.
Back then summers smelt like raspberry crush, and mellow sage, and my days were full of times spent under ice cream white clouds in Cotswold blue skies. back then the river Chelt ran unpolluted through the uncharted wastelands' that boarders the estate know to all as the Moor's, and back then Lardy cakes as big as plates still tasted like a treacle dipped sunrise. Now the river where red breasted sticklebacks once hid amongst velvet green weeds, and where small trout would face upstream undulating in the shadows of the old plank bridge, the same liquid oil rainbows from the road side drift, drowning, suffocating all life. The old dens and tree houses of my childhood have long since been bulldozed into the ground and the Moor's estate is just a small scurfy oasis in the middle of a stainless steal sea reflected in the high smoked plains of a corporate cul de sac.
But this is now, will the white baps covered with fresh flour like cascading talc, buttered, stuffed full of crisp hot bacon still taste the same, or the fluffy hot sausage rolls, slightly blackened underneath, my fathers favourite, and even my beloved Lardy cakes hot treacle stuck to the firm edges still have their taste? Or is the spell broken!
The way to the bakery had long since changed, and I struggled to remember searching for clues. MFI was still on the corner by the Tewksbury road roundabout, and the vast gates of what used to be the Aluminium foundry were still there. I have my bearings now and began to see the way like it used to be, just my father and I hand in hand down the road towards Swindon Village. A small half moon of sweet, sweet, grass just off the pavement where a flag stone path would bend seductively round to the glass fronted entrance of Gardeners bakery. The windows would be steamed up adding to the seductive charm, pulling you in out of the cold and into the warmth. The queue would wind it's way round the front of the shop like a fantastic serpent made up of working men's coats, each one blowing steam into cold hands. The big busted baker women would great each coat by it's name and as if by magic know their order. The serpent would billow it's way round towards the pay desk, past the hot glass fronted display of savory pastries and on past the fresh cream cakes, and talcum baps, until a white sleeved arm would hand each one their order. A parcel, white or brown paper wrapped, depending on sweet or savoury, hot or cold, but all bearing the the Gardeners logo on the side would be gladly received then tucked translucent under shabby coats. Then a cold blast of air would hit as they outed into the dark of the day, and every one stepped one step closer.
I didn't know what to expect on that day. I supose I wanted to face my past, I wanted to recapture the magic of childhood, a second chance perhaps. A chance to be with my father again, a chance to be held up to see over the counter to see the thick slab of Lardy cake being pulled out from below, and too watch as the rounded crispy corner all sticky black with golden syrup was cut with a big knife by the round faced baker woman.
" there you go my luvly' I saved you this bit"
" it will make you big and strong like your da"
I suppose I hopped that I would somehow find us still stood in the serpent queue just waiting our turn to be served, I hoped that the magic in Gardeners bakery would allow me one last glimpse through the steamed windows of my father warming his hands on the hot glass of the savoury counter. Or one last chance to hold his massive hand in his coat pocket being warmed by the sausage rolls as we walked back home secretly sticky faced, through fallen rainbows that swirled like liquid dreams beneath our feet.
But Gardeners was gone! replaced by a Euro Spar, selling pizza by the slice and Coffee from Kenya!